Every few years this topic comes up because every few years the situation changes. What is the state of the brick-and-mortar auto parts world?
As far as my neck of the woods, I believe last I reported, O'Reilly was king. For quality of parts, selection, service, price, they are still definitely near the top. Their prices can be higher than the other stores, but they are usually on-par and will price match advertised prices. I've noticed many of their Import Direct brand chassis parts are made by CTR, which is OEM for Hyundai/Kia and decent quality in my opinion. They still carry Wix filters, but the latest reports on Wix since the Mann-Hummel buyout have not been great, and they still want a premium for the name, so it's not as big of an advantage as it once was. The Microgard Filters are Asian-made by Premium Guard, no longer Purolator, but still very good quality.
Pepboys is out of the parts business entirely, nationwide and finally out of their misery. RIP. They still do tires and service.
Autozone fell to the bottom of the barrel and they remain there. They have a decent inventory, but their house brand parts are still the lowest quality of the chain stores, and their revolving door of employees consists of nothing but mouthbreathers. They did add a self checkout, so at least if what I'm buying is on the floor, I don't have to deal with them. They cut back their Duralast Brakes lineup, as well as dropping their "Official Brakes of Nascar" sponsorship. They now carry some U-Pol products, which is cool, but so does O'Reilly.
NAPA is another one that is bad going for worse. I know they are all independent franchises, so they are run differently, but the ones near me have banker's hours, small (and ancient) inventory, bad locations, and parts quality that definitely isn't what it used to be. Their prices aren't competitive at all. The last set of brake pads I got there were the dirtiest pads I ever used. Im not sure if they are catering exclusively to shops and they don't care at all about retail walk-ins, but there is just no reason for me to go there.
The biggest change has been at Advance. Advance got really bad for a while, to the point they were my last resort. However the Carquest buyout seems to have benefited them. They put an Advance in the former Pepboys store, which is geographically closer than any other parts store for me. I deal with the same guy every time I go, and because I've been buying a fair bit of volume from them, he's been willing to sell some higher dollar parts under their commercial accounts to heavily discount them for me. Their inventory isn't the best, but they can get 90% of stuff in from other stores or their warehouse, same-day. They do happen to have a HUGE inventory of Dorman stuff. As far as parts quality, their house brand Carquest stuff all looks pretty nice, but I haven't been able to identify who all of the manufacturers are. Carquest oil filters are no longer Wix, now Asian-made by Premium Guard (same as O'Reilly Microgard/Microgard Select). No idea who makes the chassis or electrical parts. The chassis parts I've used all look very nice out of the box, however. Well packaged, painted, good hardware. Years ago they used to be Moog, but who knows now. The Gold and Platinum brakes are also good. I have them in two cars now with no complaints.
I believe all four stores source their batteries from Clarios, formerly Johnson Controls Battery Division.
Are the chain stores elsewhere in the same boat or is this specific to me?
