A couple of months ago, I noticed a banner on a nearby Pep Boys store, stating Advance Auto Coming Soon.
When I drove past yesterday, the building had both Advance and Pep Boys signs, which I thought was… curious.
Based on this article relating to California, it appears that the retail portion of the stores will be branded as Advance Auto, and the “service” section will continue to be branded as Pep Boys.
That article was from 2021.
I have not seen that collaboration here in Florida.
I guess that the changeover began in CA, as it only seems to have hit this area over the past few months.
Here also. However, the actual date on the article has me wondering… April first, 2021.
Here is another article:
https://www.bizjournals.com/losangeles/news/2022/06/22/advance-auto-parts-begins-taking-over-former-pep-b.html
… and a blog:
https://www.retailwatchers.com/viewtopic.php?t=3173
Makes sense. Carl Icahn, who has bet big on auto service with Aamco/Cottman and Pep Boys, has said he sees no future in retail auto parts since the increasing complexity of cars has foreclosed most of the DIY repair market.
Confusing: looks like Bridgestone is buying the whole of Pep Boys to add to their chain:
Pep Boys (PBY) Sells to Bridgestone for $835 Million Under Activist Pressure From Mario Gabelli - TheStreet
This indicates the Advance change is CA, at least:
Pep Boys yields to Advance Auto Parts in major California expansion | Vehicle Service Pros
I’m not disputing that article, but I can tell you that it is definitely taking place in NJ, too.
Yeah, confusing, I thought I’d find some article that has all the changes in it. Fixed my prior post.
most all of the Pep Boys here in southern AZ have already switched to Advance Auto for the retail parts side.
Pep Boys gone from the parts business, but still doing repairs, that transition is definitely in progress in my area. I bicycled to one of the PB stores to buy a car part recently, and discovered they weren’t open for business, but had boxes and boxes of parts, the workers were busy stocking the shelves.
I asked the folks there what’s up? They told me the repair shop would continue as Pep Boys, but the parts business was going to re-open as Advanced Auto Parts. I didn’t ask them when, but it appeared to be very soon.
I asked over at the repair shop if I could buy the part there, but they said they didn’t sell parts. So Bought the part I needed from an O’Reillys instead. Would have preferred to buy it from my local inde auto parts vendor, but it was too far and unsafe road for a bicycle trip.
There’s this corner in Salem NH about 1/2 mile north of the MA border that has a Pep-Boys, Advanced Auto and a Auto Zone. I wonder what the merge would do there. Years ago when Mobil and Exxon merged I knew of a couple places that had two Mobil gas stations right next to each other. Before merge one was an Exxon.
It’s interesting how companies come and go. I’m going to show my age: Anybody remember Western Auto? It was a huge car parts place, now completely gone.
Saw one store here last night in downtown LA with Advanced as the part store and Pepboys as the repair shop. It was clear they had chopped the store inners to make this happen (poorly done!).
Western Auto was purchased by Advance Auto years ago,
Pequot lakes, speedway has taken over all the gas stations. There are 4 maybe within 2 miles and no other gas stations, goodbye Amoco and Shell! All are still open! It is odd the variations. 2 sell non oxygenated gas for boats etc. One has a seperate nozzle, the other 2 sell oxygenaated premium. Go figure!
When I first got started on diy’er auto repair late 70’s, I bought my parts from a nearby NAPA parts store, always thought they did a pretty good job; and NAPA branded parts were pretty good quality. And good customer service. One time they sold me the wrong u-joint trunnion for my truck, and later the store manager phoned me and apologized for my inconvenience. Nice touch, good way to do business. Not much experience w/NAPA here in San Jose though.
Never heard the term “Oxygenated”. Is that another name for non-ethanol?
You can have non-ethanol gas but still be Oxygenated with MTBE. An oxygenate helps reduce fuel emissions. Ethanol and MTBE (real nasty stuff that almost never goes away) are the most used oxygenates used by the auto industry.
