re: Missing American Hero: The kindly, knowledgeable auto parts counter man

Just go to the auto parts website, fill in the year, make and model and look up the part yourself. Click the pay option and go pick it up when it's ready.
No need to wait for the counter guy to do the same thing and then wait for him to go search for it and then stop to answer the phone to check the availability and price check for somebody else (my pet peeve) while you are standing there waiting for him to take your money.

I think one of the problems is that starting around the year 2000 or so, cars became too complicated to work on. They were too many on board computers and electronics in your average home. Mechanic just couldn’t work on them the way they used to.

My dad had been a diesel mechanic in the navy. So, when I was growing up, I had the opportunity to work on cars with my dad all the time. I say "had the opportunity“ because I didn’t really want to at first, but I had to. Eventually, I began to like it and got to work on almost all aspects of a car engine. I was even able to help friends after a while.

I could never do that with my kid/grandkid on modern cars because I’m afraid that I will screw something up. I can still do basic shite, but nothing technical at all. Everything runs off a fricking computer nowadays. Hell, even changing a battery on a modern car isn’t the simple job it used to be. You might need an manufacturer's OBD scanner to reset certain diagnostics if you completely take out the battery.

The result is that 50 to 60-something-year-old guys who actually worked on cars as kids just don’t have the knowledge of today’s cars to really help other people. And these are the people that the OP wishes they had more of at AutoZone.

Having said that, there are so many things that a home mechanic can do simply because of the age of YouTube videos. Before I do anything on my car, I always look for a YouTube video. You can usually find the things to be on the lookout for when doing just any work on a car. Just realize that most of these people aren’t professionals and you may screw it up following their advice.

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Or they say they are out, because it would take effort to look, when I say is that right there.

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yep, i can read SKUs and i can see that GIANT CARDBOARD BOX at the top bearing the same ID.

go get the forklift, felix.

A couple years ago I drive through some flood water and got my fuse box wet. Half the engine stopped firing. Took it to the dealership where they swapped out the fuse box. Got it back misfiring. After about three more trips to the dealership and me throwing every cheap fix I could think of, I took it back again and demanded they find the issue. At that point I knew it was electrical.

Turns out they accidentally reversed two of the injector cables. fricking retards.

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The Oreilly's where I used to live had a younger dude working there who knew a little bit about everything. He was a redneck with a big beard and old ratty truck. I drove POS vehicles so I was in there a lot. Over the years he went from the rough looking redneck to painting his nails and wearing makeup. He still knew his sh*t, though.

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Sounds like a blown tranny.

Y'all's experience is a good bit different than mine. My local AZ is awesome, while my O'Reilly is run by morons and the NAPA may as well not exist. They're never open, anyhow.

My local HD also has some dudes who really know their stuff, but our Ace is really where I go if I have functional questions. Lowe's has single moms and high school kids who may as well work at the Gap.

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A lot of lesbians at the auto parts stores these days

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I’ve noticed that the last couple of times I went into the O’Reillys .

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My dad had been a diesel mechanic in the navy. So, when I was growing up, I had the opportunity to work on cars with my dad all the time. I say "had the opportunity“ because I didn’t really want to at first, but I had to. Eventually, I began to like it and got to work on almost all aspects of a car engine. I was even able to help friends after a while.

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Similar experience for me.

My dad was an aircraft engine mechanic for American Airlines. He could fix any internal combustion engine known to man. He was also a tool designer, so if there was no tool available, he would just design one and make it.

When he got older, he got arthritis and lost a lot of flexibility in his arms and fingers, so he would make some of the damndest looking contraptions that would allow him to remove a bolt from the bottom of an engine while standing over the top looking down from above.

When I was a kid, he would make me help him with car maintenance. I hated it at first, but I am damn sure glad he made me do that.

I don't have the skill that he had, and a lot has changed since 1975, but I learned enough that I've been able to save myself a whole bunch of money over the years. I have some of his old tools and am still using them to this day.

20 years ago, a cousin who was an executive with a large multi-dealership company assured me that within 5 years the only non-dealer service would be tires, shocks and brakes. He was personally investing in those areas. So, it hasn't turned out quite so restrictive, but that's only because the courts forced to make auto error codes public. Dealerships don't want competent parts shops.