Parts Is Not Parts

I like to work on cars. I'd rather do that than watch TV, and for several years I was working in an industry that kept me moving around, apartment to apartment. So when I finally got a house, the biggest change was being able at long last to take on a serious car project.

One big change from my high school days is the death of the good old line parts stores with their countermen and the advance, no pun intended, of chain stores with low paid kids and minimal training, using online databases for all parts questions.

If you are working with stone stock late model vehicles-which is what these guys cater to-it's not such a problem. But the days of "counter sense" are gone, gone completely, so what used to be common knowledge is not.

I walked into one lately to buy the parts to rebuild an alternator. It's a Delco 10SI, about the commonest alternator known to man. The reason I wanted to rebuild mine was that the one I have was powder coated by the previous owner to match the brackets and cam covers on the engine which were also powder coated. Of course, they had no idea what it was, no idea how to figure it out, and when I finally communicated to them what it was, no parts and-what really bothered me-no idea where to get them. If it wasn't on their screen, it might as well be sitting on Mars as far as they could tell, or care.

They had no source for these parts. This was, I repeat, the commonest alternator in the United States. In fact, they had only one source for any part, their warehouse, and if the warehouse didn't have a SKU, you were SOL.

Of the four chains with parts stores in this area, two of them are run absolutely by this model, one caters mostly to Mexicans and the jalopies they drive-which means thay know a lot of what fits what and have a lot of little parts, but they are always packed and face time with countermen is scarce-and the fourth just regards retail customers as a pain in the ass. There are no more independents left.

I'm starting to order everything mail order.