Doomsday

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I have been doing ALL maintenance and repairs on all of my own vehicles since I was 18. That's 40 years of automotive excellence by the way. I also work on the vehicles of friends and relatives from time to time.

Anyone else here do all their own fixin up of the beaters?

Anyhow... rear brake job time. Owner of the vehicle drove it until the caliper piston itself ground a really nice inch and a half by quarter-inch deep notch into the back side of the disc. No telling where the piston side pad went, it's gone. Both the disc and caliper are scrap now. Driver's side, it's past time for pads there but everything else looks okay as far as I can see without taking the wheel off. So here we go off to the parts store for a new set of pads and a new caliper and disc.

Hot damn, those prices for the caliper and disc are way outta range of the owner's ability. She was able to afford the 50 dolla brake pads though. Junkyard time then, we gonna go to one of them and find the same car and cannibalize the right rear disc and caliper. Moar labor, dodging snakes and rodents and who knows what else, PITA. The adventure was scheduled for tomorrow when the owner gets paid.

Sitting at home watching motorweek, the endless commercials for rockauto dot com kept coming on. Finally it penetrated my thick skull - go to their website and at least have a look around.

The junkyard disc and caliper were gonna be 200 bucks. About half what the auto parts store wanted. But lookie here I find on rockauto, a replacement KIT for both sides of the rear brakes for this car? TWO calipers, TWO discs and two sets of brake pads, all NEW shit not used or remanned - for 170 bucks!

I sent her back to the parts store to get herself a refund on the pads. And placed the order for the parts from rockauto. Stuff gonna be here in a week, 17 dolla shipping. 206 bucks for all new parts for both sides of the rear breaks of this car. That's mite near 1000 if you bought it at the brick and mortar auto parts store!

Rockauto is where I'm gonna be any time I need parts. They use ONLY fedex to ship and there's a next day option for 100 bucks if you need the shit now. I looked up those same brake pads there and they were 24 frikkin bucks. For the fiddy dolla brake pads! No, thanks. Not doing any more parts shopping at the local parts house that's for sure. (O'Reilly's)

Anyhow, rockauto is pretty snazzy. I already sourced brake pads for my own truck for the brake job that's coming soon for it, and hipped another friend to the site over the phone, he does more paid mechanicin' than I do.

So guys - go to rockauto for your auto parts. Stop fucking around with the parts stores, they can't or won't, compete.

You may now resume shaving your back.
 

Scot

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Thanks for the heads up on Rockauto

I’ve been curious about them as well.

Be sure to let us know your thoughts on all the parts once they show up. The price is right. Hopefully the quality is there as well.
 

Doomsday

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Thanks for the heads up on Rockauto

I’ve been curious about them as well.

Be sure to let us know your thoughts on all the parts once they show up. The price is right. Hopefully the quality is there as well.
I ordered OEM parts that even had the mfg part numbers. Coulda went way cheap and got knockoffs, don't wanna do that. Also coulda gone premium and got performance parts for 50 percent more and up. You have all the options there.

OEM stuff is under the "daily driver" options.
 

Doomsday

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For example the brake pads... Full set for the rear is 5.99 for the knockoffs. Yeah, no thanks.
 

SixisBetter

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Never bought anything from them, but since I was in the parts business for 25+ years, I was naturally curious about them.
I scoped their catalog a few times and you are spot on.
The electronic catalog is intuitive and a breeze to use. As you say, the prices are great, and their inventory is pretty deep.
Again, never bought a thing from them, but I'd sure as heck give them a try if I needed to.
 

Doomsday

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Never bought anything from them, but since I was in the parts business for 25+ years, I was naturally curious about them.
I scoped their catalog a few times and you are spot on.
The electronic catalog is intuitive and a breeze to use. As you say, the prices are great, and their inventory is pretty deep.
Again, never bought a thing from them, but I'd sure as heck give them a try if I needed to.
I was just steeped in tradition for redneck "shadetree mechanics" and never gave even a passing thought to ordering auto parts online. It was a total mental block. If we can't afford it at the parts store we just go and strip it at the salvage yard and that's that.

Can't imagine how much wasted money I've tossed away, not going to rockauto. Shit, I order tools online, anything I need for my HVAC too, electronics, pet products, you name it. Just never, auto parts.

Thick skull, smog in the noggin.
 

Doomsday

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HVAC example - I had a control transformer shit the bed. 240 volts in, 24 volts out. Simple shit. The local HVAC store wanted 150 bucks for it and it was a hybrid multi tap crap generic designed to work for many models and applications, and was HUGE compared to the dead one.

I went online and found the actual, right part... OEM specs... Same size same mount same everything... 20 frikkin bucks.

Only thing about ordering online is you gotta wait anywhere from 2 days to a week to get the shit in your hands. But 99 percent of the time you can do that.
 

Scot

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This is good to know

I have a buddy with an old clunker that seems to need something replaced every other week

And he is a cheap bastard too

So he will love this info!
 

Doomsday

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Got curious and did some calling around to local and area auto repair shops including brake/exhaust shops. For this car getting NEW rear calipers, discs and pads... The prices ranged from 1100 to 1600 dollas for this job, parts and labor.

I'm doing it for the 200 cost of the parts and a case of beer. Only gonna take about an hour and a half.
 

cml750

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I do all of my own repairs also. I have never used Rock Auto but definitely will consider them in the future. I have a tip to get good deals if anyone is interested. If you go to the Advance Auto website and order parts online for in-store pick up, you can ALWAYS find a promo code to take 25% off the order (up to $50). I have been doing this for several years and have never not been able to find a promo code by doing a simple Google search for Advance Auto Promo code. Additionally if you sign up for there "Speed Perks" program they always send you a $5 dollar off code you can use on your next order or $20 dollar code if your order amount is past a threshold ( I am not sure what the limit is for this). So every time I purchase a part from them I get 25% off ($50 max) plus an extra $5 or $20 off.
 
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