KY | hinfarm - 4/8/2026 07:46 NAPA sucks Gone are the days of walking in there putting your item on the counter in front of the grey haired and/or balding guy who was chain smoking that would communicate with only grunts and snorts with a 90% chance of being named Fred, Gary or Carl that could match whatever you had and get you going without looking up anything and would know the part number from memory. Now you take a 1 inch oil hose off a CAT engine with a serial number and model number in there and Jaxon who just started 3 weeks ago can’t help you and has no way to look it up even with the internet at his fingertips. Probably wouldn’t be so frustrating if NAPA wouldn’t advertise saying they have heavy duty and off road parts.
Does that oil hose go to a 2WD or 4WD? Live tandems or no? (Not that they would know what that was)
Your description of the behind the counter guy caught me funny... There's a song by Steven Wilson Jr. titled "Gary".. and oddly enough the chorus starts out "There ain't a lot of boys named Gary these days, born with a cigarette glued to their face. Fix about anything a hammer can handle, savin' all their money 'cause a Gary don't gamble"
Also, when I was a youngster the main parts man at the Ford/NH dealer was named Carl, guy was a part # whiz like so many of the time. I was behind a glass truck on the road yesterday and I thought, wonder if whoever is working that truck knows how to replace the windshield in my '56 chevy. 20 years ago any of those guys could have done it in their sleep, now, probably have never seen such a piece of glass. I think it's because there's not many employer "pensions' anymore, everyone has a 401K if they have anything, which is good for the fella who likes to job hop... and on the flip side it encourages and leads to job hopping. There's no real loyalty anymore, so that experience doesn't get built over 2-3 decades. I want to say I read a few months ago that on average, a person stays with an employer for 4 years or something like that. Folks like me that have been in a place 20+ have to be bringing that number up drastically so johnny you may see at the parts counter today probably won't be there this time next year if he's already been there more than 6 months. By the time he learns what a muffler bearing is, he's out the door. |
Napa price and quality going downhill
