Quote:
Originally Posted by MARTINSR
We have a parts store in town who's salesmen came to the shop to set us up on the computer to there web site so we can look up parts and not call them!
This just happened yesterday. Ok, the creepy part? How about you put the license number of the car and it knows what the make model and year are! That is just creepy!
Brian
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Yeah, we are a little weirded out by the license plate data bases as well! My first experience was the old mom-and-pop that I sublet exhaust work to and it freaked me out. What do you mean you can quote the right catalytic converter with the license plate? Do tell...!!!
Lots of truth in all this! There is no perfect catalog, electronic or otherwise. If you have any experience finding parts you are probably better than the retail, customer side parts counter kid that helps you on Saturday morning. That's why I walk I never walk-in without a part number on a Saturday, an exercise in futility. It's not their fault, they are a small piece of a large supply puzzle that gets more complex every day. I own a shop...and it's funny how many off-the-wall ways we have to find parts and part numbers. Another good one for the hobbyist is Rockauto.com, and yes we use it frequently in the shop (and then tease the parts stores about it). And we have numerous subscriptions, high-powered data bases, monthly updated electronic catalogs, etc. There are also retailers, for example there is a BMW parts website called realoem.com that has all OEM diagrams and detailer p/n's and retail pricing. We quite often fax what we need from there to the dealer because they can't find stuff quickly enough. Another advantage we have is pulling OE p/n's from labor estimating tools like Alldata and Identifix and crossing them to aftermarket p/n's.