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SW Ohio | Anybody else disappointed with Napa anymore? For most of my life Napa has been our go-to for bearings/seals/filters/etc... but the past few years have really made me aggravated. In the past year or two they dropped Wix as their Gold Filter supplier. Hadn't noticed any changes until recently when a bunch of filters looked different than the ones i was taking off, and are made in Vietnam/China instead of USA. Ended up at the local O'Reillys and the same filter in a Wix was identical to my old one and Made in the USA. Needed some bearings for a rake. Napa had SKF for $23 which i thought was high but dealt with it for being SKF. Ended up all being made in India. They were short a few so i ordered some from Oreillys, they were $12 and made in China which IMO i would trust more than India. Oil seals and filter prices in general have also gotten ridiculous IMO. Over the years i've bought quite a few Carlyle tools which thought were pretty nice quality and when on sale a good value. Recently Carlyle has gone under a rebrand and the tools seem pretty crappy and prices are up there with Mac/Matco/Snap-on which is insane. Automotive parts wise everything seems alright still, we're still running Napa Legend batteries and a lot of their brake parts.
With that being said i'm ordering a lot more stuff from Oreillys, but also started sourcing Wix filters from Fleetfilter.com and just got in a big order of Timken bearings from Summit Racing. Surprisingly the bearings were 1/3-1/2 price of the parts store and all MADE IN THE USA. As much as i hate ordering parts online it sure feels like i'm running out of options.
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Napa price and quality going downhill
