Definitely cool!
A company with a sense of humor is rare.
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Auto Zone is the oldest of the McParts chains and I have more experience with them than the others and it has been my opinion that in my area their micro management of a corporate cookie cutter business model often clashes with the customer base. Advance seems to come close behind A-Z in a very similar corporate style. On the other hand O’Reilly’s either lagged behind or purposely moved along a more Mom & Pop appearing style until recently. More and more O’Reilly is jumping onto the Auto Zone mind set though. There is one independent parts store left here and it is both out of my way and their counter help stays extremely busy on the phones to their commercial accounts which no longer includes me. That store may do more than all the McParts stores in town combined but it’s out the side door.
I can’t say they’re great or bad. They’ve been fine for me. The “WalMartization” of retail stores, however, has lowered my expectations of any buying experience in any retail chain store.
We have an Advance and an O’Reilly in my part of town. I flip-flop between them. The folks are pretty friendly in both and are reasonably competent, at least for what I need.
I guessed correctly! Then, once I got there, I had no problem with the name EB Enterprises, either! 
CSA
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Hate to talk about dentistry on a car site but crown technology is totally different from what it used to be - now they’re ceramic and perfectly affordable.
That is understandable. I hate reading about it on a car site. 
CSA
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I used to purchase things from there. I went there because getting in and out of AZ took at least 20 minutes. But I had some issues where the employees did not put the information into my account so I didn’t get a warranty. I tried advanced but I have had too many things from them fail especially gaskets. I still go into O’Reilly’s from time to time.
On an applicable note, very recently the O’Reillys here have changed their receipts and which now kind of mimic the AutoZone paper with the Magic Store disappearing ink. Quite handy for those lifetime guarantee parts…or not.
And don’t believe that with a transaction number and a receipt faded to snow white that they will be able to pull the part up and warranty it anyway. Being cynical, I’d say it was planned from the get-go… 
Lol, I’ve had this happen also with AutoZone receipts. I keep all my car receipts in a folder. A lot of my old receipts from AZ are just blank pieces of paper now. The ink just completely vanishes.
Quite some time ago, I had to start making copies of my receipts and filing the copies with the receipts. The copies live on after the life goes out of the fake receipts.
CSA
You guys have reminded me that I have been on the losing end of those receipts myself and O’Reilly’s lost all my warranty history a few years ago and I had a personal boycott going for a while but obviously they didn’t miss me. I keep their receipts while the warranty is in effect and always use a debit card at all the parts stores for warranteed parts to have a paper trail to back track on if needed. It’s really annoying that retailers make life miserable for honest people in an effort to thwart the crooks yet the crooks never miss a beat.
I had that with a battery. You are supposed to put the receipt in the plastic pocket on the side of the battery so you always have it with you. Of course after a couple years it is a blank piece of paper. Better to put it in the glove box.
For returns of defective or incorrect parts at Menards you can look all purchases up by credit card and print a receipt for what you need to return. Now warrantee issues are a different story, had a laser level that puked, Lifetime warranty, sorry we can’t replace it as we do not carry that part anymore. Auto parts stores are typically no return on electrical parts in my experience. Now I bought a new all in one printer, scanner fax from HP, It wanted to hook me up for automatic ink cartridges automatically billed to my credit card and sent as needed, open my printer up on the web, which can allow for hackers to access my network and computers, and the parts store with disappearing ink will not cover warranty? Crazy!
So whadda ya think Barky? Should I try to find the camera on my Samsung TV and put tape over it?
Actually yes, Microsoft has patented smart tv to shut off if too many people watching a movie, then this
FBI director reveals he covers his webcam with TAPE - and says everyone should be doing the same to stop hackers spying
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3790585/FBI-director-covers-webcam-TAPE-says-doing-stop-hackers-spying.html#ixzz4bikQG58M
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Now wife tells me to put on the seat belt because if I do not it is registered in the black box on the car.
I used to just keep a cup over my web cam but when I change computers I just didn’t plug it in anymore. Yeah actually all of that is recorded on the black box so that they can reconstruct what exactly the conditions were in an accident. Of course it is all private information and only authorized law enforcement are able to access it. Of course. Clapper has never lied to us before.
Please tell me you don’t have to be told to do something that could save your life or at least reduce the injuries from an accident.
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Yes I do have to be told, I am choosing personal freedom, but then again a guy on a motorcycle can give me a ticket for not wearing a seat belt. Sure I survived a head on crash because an illegal in the country person thought green light meant go, “Yes officer light was green I turn left and he hit me!” sure I busted the windsheild with my head, and had a sore knee from hitting the dashboard, but it is my life as I choose to live it.
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Here’s my experience with O’Reilly’s: I think they realized that dealing with a customer base that’s looking for wiper refills or complaining about a $5 price difference on a master cylinder is nothing but a race to the bottom of the barrel.
Several years ago a local sales rep came by and explained that they had recently finished a huge warehouse/distribution center nearby and were wooing the professional market. They largely got rid of their house and economy brands and were now stocking industry recognized brands for the majority of their parts. I toured the facility and found it to be well-stocked. They also installed “back counter” or wholesale only people in the store that serviced me, so when I did need to phone something in, I would be dealing with a seasoned pro and not a college kid with a part-time job.
You see, those seasoned pros at the parts counter are too valuable to the wholesale accounts to be dealing with DIY Bob who comes in without a VIN or RPO code for his car but wants the correct brake pads and pulls out a rewards card to make sure he gets a lifetime warranty.
Of course the quality of any vendor is as much dependent on the people that work there as the parts they sell. I can say my wholesale vendors from O’Reilly’s have consistently gone above and beyond to get me what I need to fix the cars in the shop.
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I have a folder on my computer for each car I have. One of the files is an excel with the maintenance records. I also scan the important receipts and save it as a PDF file so I don’t have to pile them up and also won’t worry about them fading.