The quality of people that both Advance and Autozone are hiring has been steadily dropping over the last 8 years or so. I was a store manager at Autozone back in the late 90s and most of the people that I originally had working for me were had some dealership or previous parts store experience (I myself had worked at two dealerships already). The remainder of the store staff were very hard core do it yourself guys that knew their stuff. Most of us were already ASE certified before we were hired and the rest easily passed their parts exams.
Of course Autozone eventually realized that the biggest expense in store operation was employee wages. To make more profit they decided to start being less and less picky when it came to hiring new people and the salaries they were offering got to be less and less. It got to the point where they were only hiring people with some retail experience and no automotive experience. Their thinking was that new hires could be trained to ask basic questions of the customer and get a more knowledgeable Zoner involved when they were stumped. Obviously this doesn’t work out too well when all the people working on the parts counter are pretty much auto-ignorant and there’s nobody to ask for help.
I’m glad I left them. Most of my time during the day was helping my less knowledgable employees do their job which cut into the time I had left to do my job. The final straw for me was when they hired in a Parts Sales Manager for my store and my regional manager and district manager were both particularly impressed with his managerial experience from working at a local McDonalds.
the bottom line is that you can’t really find knowledgeable counter help anymore at the money they want to pay and the quality of customer service begins to suffer as a result.
this is very true but then again there are a couple stores around still that have people who actually know what they are doing. come up to our store in butler. we all are hardcore car guys and know alot same with the other store in butler. it honostly depends on where you go
I went through 3 starters for my truck before they got the right one, my dad went through 3 master cylinders before he got a good one, and my wife just got an oil filter for the vic and they gave her the wrong one. This was just from advanced. I can’t count the number of wrong/defective parts I have got from autozone and pep boys when I had my sho.
I started going back to the dealer for ALL parts. I gladly pay a little more and know I get the right part, the first time. The wheel bearing for my Altima was cheaper at the dealer for an actual nissan part than the cheap aftermarket part at advanced and autozone. fuck all parts stores.
I agree. Most of the rebuilt stuff at Advance?Autozone is the lowest quality stuff they can get. It’s not worth the “savings” versus buying one from a dealer of a better parts store when you consider how much your time is worth removing and reinstalling the same part two or three times.
BTW, not only do the truck drivers make more than the people in the store (including managers) but the people at the Autozone distribution center in Zanesville also make more. I don’t mean a couple of bucks either, it’s quite a bit of a difference.