@idahovette Yea, where it comes to these conglomerates, local management can make or break.
@Grit dog remember when I told there is a great Autozone in Kirkland, and if you ever needed parts up this way to go in there and ask for Vern (he was the manager). Forget it, he moved on. Vern had been hanging around since the 90's, he was a tech back then, owned a Matco franchise for a while, then Autozone, now I think I heard that he is running the maintenance department for a private company. Anyhow he's gone from that Autozone, and the store has gone to H E L L in the last couple months. I called over there the other day and asked for the wholesale department and the dude that answered the phone did not know that they had a wholesale guy....
Nother one bites the dust…
Maple Valley Autozone had or maybe has a good guy working there still.
Retired Boeing engineer and pretty big time Ford/Mopar collector ( big to me not Jay Leno type ****…). He did a little parking lot diagnosis and repair on our sons Mustang. Voluntarily. Actually sent us over the Johnsons hardware to kill some time while he “fixed” the issue.
(I gladly accepted. It’s a rare occurrence when anyone fixes something for me. 99% of the time it’s the other way around.)
But he is certainly not the norm. Far from it. And just putzing at a part time job that he enjoys since he’s a gear head. Would be similar to me, you or any number of people who have far surpassed the min quals to get hired at a parts store.
Gosney Napa in Auburn, all of their employees have been here forever (2011 is “forever” since we moved to WA then, lol) and very knowledgeable. Way better than some of the counter guys at the big Napa dist center in Kent.
I’ll actually call Gosney first to get the right part or part number if I can’t finger it out on napaonline and THEN go to Kent to buy it if they don’t have in stock in Auburn.
But in general sticks n bricks auto parts stores are, not on their way out I believe, but subject to the same Amazon phenomenon that the rest of the retailers are experiencing. Can’t count how many times now I go to a parts store or 2 of them, and before I walk out I’ve ordered the part on Amazon that I couldn’t get in the store and it’s on my porch the next evening….always wondering why I didn’t just Amazon it 2 days ago when I knew or thought I needed it. And then wasted a trip to Vato Zone!