I mainly just order it on line and either have it delivered to my house or go pick it up in 30 minutes… When you spent your entire career dealing with mostly qualified commercial parts people ordering stuff, even ordered all my personal parts through them, just told them cash ticket with tax, and always got great discounts… I can’t stand dealing with non commercial parts people now… Even Auto Zone’s commercial parts managers seemed to know their stuff, they just had crapy parts… lol
Down here in corn bread country every
real parts store in the 50s and 60s
stocked complete exhaust systems
for popular vehicles and they took up a lot of space.
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A local NAPA was the last place we had that was a real old school parts store. I can’t pinpoint when it all fell apart, probably started in 2005 or so. Now its just a bunch of smart alecs there with sharp tongues. I don’t need them, I can look up the same information on my phone without the smart commentary.
You used to walk in there, bare concrete floor, 1970s rock blaring and a guy with long hair that was smoking while looking stuff up in the book if he even needed to look it up. His hands were dirty from machining rotors and drums, now I got some smart mouthed guy trying to sell me fuel injection cleaner after I just bought a part for a carbed car and they get real smart with you.
AI can do their job at this point. We won’t even be repairing cars much, you will subscribe to a vehicle and you won’t own it.
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Already being done, it’s called leasing, only been common for the past 50 years.
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With a lease, you still have many obligations; maintenance, insurance, you own excessive wear and tear or damage while in your possession etc. Companies like Waymo are positioning themselves to have cars so readily available that people in urban or even sub-urban areas can simply call for a car when they need one thereby significantly reducing or even eliminating many of those associated costs of owning or leasing a vehicle.
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We have a forum member that could benefit from that…
May I offer a minor correction? I think it should read;
thereby shifting those costs of owning or leasing a vehicle to the passenger in the form of taxi fees.
The costs remain, the end user still pays for them. The costs are just hidden in the user fees.
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All true, but if one Waymo can replace, say, five little-used personal cars, then the cost to the end users will likely be lower than if they all owned cars.
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You’re right, the costs don’t entirely disappear but that’s why I said- significantly reducing or eliminating…you would pay a fractional amount of many of those expenses as they would be spread across many users versus just yourself. Stuff like- you exceeded the mileage fees, got parking lot damage etc would be eliminated. Of course the company still has to maintain, insure etc but again, as a customer you only have a small fraction of those expenses to cover rather than just yourself. But I agree, your clarification is warranted as the free lunch is still a myth 
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A company tried this in Indianapolis around 10 years ago, it didn’t last. I dint know why it wasn’t viable. They used some oddball EVs that were common in another country and not common here. The problem I see is how do you keep the cars clean?
The same Avis and Hertz keep their rental cars clean.
I resemble that remark! Most of my adult life I have had more cars in the household than drivers. I understand the negative economics of that decision and still choose to have multiple cars.
Many people could benefit from not owning any cars and paying for Ubers or taxis or buses. Heck these days you can arrange to rarely leave your home with Amazon and lots of other sellers that will ship to your home. For food you have Doordash, Grubhub, Dominos and even groceries will deliver. And work from home is far more prevalent than ever. I live in a neighborhood within walking distance of my primary doc, dentist, grocery, Ford dealer, liquor store and several fast food places and restaurants. But I still have 3 cars!
Maybe Mike is right, we won’t live to see the Robo-taxi takeover of travel, but I suspect we will see some decline in car ownership as people turn away from the concept of ownership.
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I see one door with a giant fan and the other door open
First line defense- cameras. If someone tosses in the car, it heads back to a service cell for cleaning.
You will soon see UV light being used to sanitize recirculating interior air and touch surfaces.
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I HOPE so!
I used to half-jokingly say my brother-in-law considered used cars like used underwear. He would never buy a used car.
For the techs here that have serviced customer cars…. What percentage of those cars did you want to glove up before you touched them? What percentage did you want a hazmat suit and gas mask?
We all know someone who treats their car worse than a garbage pail.
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In 1974 I interviewed for a job at an engineering services company in lower Manhattan. The cost of owning and parking the car in Midtown was so high that I could have commuted by taxi every day and then gone out on the town by taxi every night, and still saved money over owning a car. I imagine it’s the same now.
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That didn’t happen with Blue Indy. It was up to the users to keep them clean. They were parked on the street and you frequently hot seated them from what I understand about it.
You also relied on the last user to have followed directions and plugged the vehicle in after they parked it.
I have an uncle who lives in Manhattan. He owns a car. It takes him about an hour and half to get to it. Two bus rides and a train, then a 15 minute walk. He parks it at a friend’s house in Jersey. 
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Zipcar still exists in certain cities, parked on the street or arranged spaces in a lot. Seattle it looks to be lots of chevy bolt’s presumably parked near chargers. Fuel or ev charging is included in the rental. Supposed to top back up before returning to the patking space. Mainly near tourist ateas or college campus.
Enterprise Rent A Car ran a Zipcar thing in downtown Nashville for select state employees and at Vanderbilt for students to use that paid a fee for them… We had the contract to do all the service to them, unless it was a warranty issue, ERAC car-sharing would clean them and bring them in for service when needed… One guy ran it with one maybe two helpers most of the time… If the vehicle was dropped off at our shop, we would have to call him so he would “turn on the car or unlock the security system” so we could start it and move it, the keys were always secured to the vehicle and left in the vehicles…
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