Hot Rods ac plugs at autozone

went to auto zone today to get 8 ac 45 plugs .they brought them to the counter. i open the box and 6 out of 8 plugs were used.. the look on his face. glad i checked them before i left.

 

I used to work at Advanced Autoparts for a while after I retired. I ran into the exact same thing. Somebody at the counter failed to check the box of returned plugs to see if someone was pulling a fast one. Could also be a friend of someone who works there and they knew full well who was stealing parts.

 

Imagine if you got them home it would be your word against theirs.

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Easily could have been done by one of the employees too...

 

Tapered wheel bearings are another favorite

 

Thank you. I will start checking them.

 

I check EVERY part, in front of the salesman, for being used and for boxed wrong and for damage. Got a damaged special order, fuel filter at O’Rielies, in Sturgis a few years ago. Made them take it back and get me another one. Saves time and hassle AND keeps my blood pressure down.

 

Same thing happened to me at the 'Zone several years ago. Eight out of eight had witness marks on them together with oil residue, looked like someone was tossing parts at their car to cure a miss. Showed their counter guy right there and then, no doubt that they were "pretested" as we used to sarcastically say when a customer tried to return a installed part.

I check spark plugs for the center electrode location, over the years and I don't know the reason behind it but AC plugs seemed to be prone to having the electrode off center. Probably something to do with driving GM cars since 1968 and working in GM dealerships since 1970 and using AC's in most of my cars. Dealing with motorcycles , Japanese, British and Harley, never saw that problem with them over the years, coincidence maybe but still.

 

They don't make them like they used to......

 

I worked at a Chevy dealership parts department in the late 60's for my high school work study program and found an entire case of A/C plugs that had no threads! Those were surely the prototype press-in style!

- EM

 

I've worked returns at a couple large automotive warehouses. After awhile you start to develop a sense of which boxes, or customers to be suspicious of. Trust, BUT verify.
-Dave

 

I think the real issue here is that he's going to Auto zone

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Had it happen with coolant to myself once.

Parts dept at jaguar sold a customer a stupid expensive fuel pump relay ( 4-500 buck relay)
And there is no return on opened electronics.

Well said customer returned the relay claiming he never took it out of the box as his issue was something else.

The 16 spade holes in the bottom of the box proved it was a lie!!

He simply pushed the relay spade pins through the box the connected it to the fuse box!!
Thought he found a loop hole to return the relay !!

 

Opened up a new Accel distributor cap only to find a well used one! Exchanged it the next day- no problem.

 

It's so common these days to see the bubble pack packages on the
shelf already opened and something missing.

 

The only thing I noticed with AC plugs was that the ceramic head would break off fairly easily compared to other brands.

 

I think that is just about any parts house these days. Too many guys do the try the part to see if it fixes the problem and then return it thing. In this area pilfered parts and tools are almost the norm rather than the exception in parts houses and a couple that I have been into don't have small stuff out front anymore including single sockets or other small tools. Last thing I got that had been handled and put back in the box was a set of brake shoes with greasy hand prints all over the surface that the parts gal and I opened at the counter to match the ones I had. I didn't take that set but the shop in town that returned them got billed for them again.

 

Yep that's why we try to handle parts with clean hands so just in the off chance the part is wrong the box and part doesn't get covered in grease and dirt.

 

This goes back many years but I had upped the power on a newish engine and so the stock clutch couldn't handle the extra centrifugal spin to engage at high RPM shifts. When I was unpacking the upgraded pressure plate I noticed it had been dropped and mushroomed on the edge plus had cracked part way across the "plate". My brother-in-law, who had ordered the clutch and was doing the clutch job for me, tried to suggest we go ahead and use it. I told him that thing was a hand grenade waiting to go off and no way was I going to use it.

It's one thing to get screwed on used or opened parts, but it's quite another to get a part that that can take your legs off at the knee. I'm glad I was there to catch the problem.

 

Sometimes it's not the customer. Bought an OT alternator at a local chain store that turned out to be bad. I returned it and received another that was also defective. On the third try the guy brought out the first one that I originally returned. I had told him what was wrong (screaming bearing) with it and it needed to be sent back. After he tried to tell me it was not the same one I showed him where I marked the box and the alternator with a DEF. The third one worked fine.

 

I bought a box (50 feet) of fabric wire loom at a local store. Got a little suspicious when I got the "hurry up and pay" attitude. I opened up the box and there was only 20 ft in it. No Sale! I made them order another box. It was complete. Go figure.

 

Think of the tax breaks that company gets...

 

Especially if you used the spark plug "breaker" sockets with the rubber insert.

 

In the problaly billizion spark plugs I changed in my career, the thing I noticed about AC plugs was the electrode many times was irregular. More so than any other brand by a long shot. Never seem to effect any thing. We always put ACs in GM, Autolite in Ford, and Champion in MoPar, NGK in the jap crap, if we could. So I saw a variety of plugs.

Bones

 

When I was in high school I put a set of Champion spark plugs in my Mom's 66 Buick Skylark. Several days later she blew a radiator hose when I was out of town so she had the local Buick dealer replace it. While she was there they up sold her a tune up. When I asked the service manger why they replaced a set of perfectly good Champion plugs he looked straight at me and without even blinking he told me Buick's wouldn't run with Champions they had to have AC plugs. I won't tell you where I told him to put his AC plugs.

 

I just ordered a t-shirt from Summit to round out an order for free shipping... they must have done a switcheroo at UPS, I got a bag of swimming pool fittings. Still resolving it with Summit.

A spark plug story from years ago. I worked with a tune up guy who was quite good. If someone handed him a box of plugs, if there was any evidence on the box that it was dropped, he'd give it back. We stocked only Champions are chances were good we had more on hand.

 

Gotten used plugs, coil's ,ecm's, even clutch kit's ( yes, used clutch kit's) among other used assorted stuff from O'reilly's.

 

nothing personal but ac plugs are ac plugs no matter where you buy them. an thieves shop every where

 

A friend bought a case, maybe 6 gallons, of antifreeze at NAPA. When he got them home about half of them were opened and were full of water.