Was this a local Mom 'n Pop Parts Store of a Franchised business like AutoZone, Advance, O’Reillys, etc? Other than a Store Credit, did they offer to replace the starter or only offered a “take or leave it” store credit?
Anyway, they lost a future customer…
I have never had an issue if a part failed twice or more like Bing’s did in a short period of time, tell them to either give me a dealer part or money back cause there part is junk… lol… Anything can fail right out of the box or in a short time, that is why they have warranty’s on parts, but 2 close together and they tend to be more willing to help you out… especially if it caused a break down and you had to get the part from somewhere else being away from home (traveling)… But yeah if you don’t give them a second chance then you are more out to get store credit… I have delt with 100’s of different parts houses (locations) over the years (Auto Zones (even before they were Auto Zone), Car Quest, Napa, O’Reilly’s, Advance Auto, Western Auto, a few local auto parts)…
Franchise National Auto Parts store. They would have given me another starter if I wanted, but after all the work to install and remove the faulty one they sold me, I’d lost faith in their ability to provide me a working starter. I continued to be a customer, although not as often. Problem wasn’t the staff’s fault, and I was able to use the store credit to stock up on repair staples, oil, coolant, and the like.
Normally I’d have used my preferred local auto parts store, not really a mom & pop, but not a national chain; it is a local chain of half dozen stores, provides very good service & experienced staff. . In this case l I had to walk to the parts store for some reason. Maybe the car under repair was blocking the other from being used. So had to walk to the closest parts store.
Here’s some irony: A few years later I had to replace the original starter , the one that was fixed by the auto-electric place. I purchased that replacement at my preferred auto parts store. After I installed it, key to “start”, loud whirrrrrr … but engine not turning … lol… that one was faulty out of the box too. The staff there put their heads together and got me a good Denso unit, which has been working fine since.
I have never understood why people don’t bench test a starter before installing, it is one of the easiest if not the easiest automotive part to test before installing… I have seen so many starters out of the box not work…
You mentioned a dealer part. Are you saying they have higher quality parts that they give the shops or an oem brand?
In some cases OEM from the dealer… depends on the circumstances of course…
This seems sort of puzzling. It’s hard to believe the companies (offshore presumably) who are making/rebuilding these units decide to ship a load of them, knowing a high % will fail right out of the box. I doubt that is happening. An alternate theory, somehow the bad ones are accumulating at the parts stores. For example a customer installs one, doesn’t work (maybe b/c customer damaged it in the process, or it was faulty to begin with), customer brings it back, and parts store just puts it back on their shelf. So over time the parts store ends up w/ a parts stock w/a high % of faulty units…
I dunno but once I was searching for small engine carburetors and ran across a Chinese site. Buying in bulk they were about 50 cents a piece. Not much time to spend on quality control at that price. Just throw the half away that dont work. Don’t try to ship them back.
No one has ever called me. I always just go when it’s due, or try to do it all online, so there will be an email when it’s in. I’m getting ready to ask another car question & I’ll tag you in it; I think you’ll know the answer to this one.