euroastar350
July 21st, 2011, 21:02
Don't go to Autozone, at least not for major components such as starters and alternators.
A year ago, the original alternator in my car failed while I was enroute to work. Lucky for me, a state trooper gave a lift to work in time. Me not being very wise decided to go to the nearest car part store to source out a new alternator for my car and autozone was the first place I got one and what a bad idea that was. A month after I had the new alternator installed, it went south and there I was wondering how to get the car back home in one piece. Lucky for me, a friend of mine was able to get out of work to help push my car home with his jeep. Story gets worse, I tried to return the defected alternator back to autozone and the salesman that sold the defective alternator told me that he never sold me the failed alternator and that I would have to shell out another $220 for a new or should I say refurbished alternator. That was the last time I bought ANYTHING from them. There is a car part warehouse not too far from where I live where I can buy brand new parts including alternators, although it is slighty higher in salesprice, it was worth it IMO.
Now if I ever need anything for my car, I go to any other parts store, the junkyard or as a last resort, the dealership (<----expensive, but worth it).
My current car is a 2000 Kia Sephia LS
So what did I learned from all this? Don't trust Autozone or any other place that sells refurbished starters/alternators as they will fail within a short amount of time, no matter how long it was placed in the vehicle. For me, it was in 1 month before it failed....YIKES!!!!
A year ago, the original alternator in my car failed while I was enroute to work. Lucky for me, a state trooper gave a lift to work in time. Me not being very wise decided to go to the nearest car part store to source out a new alternator for my car and autozone was the first place I got one and what a bad idea that was. A month after I had the new alternator installed, it went south and there I was wondering how to get the car back home in one piece. Lucky for me, a friend of mine was able to get out of work to help push my car home with his jeep. Story gets worse, I tried to return the defected alternator back to autozone and the salesman that sold the defective alternator told me that he never sold me the failed alternator and that I would have to shell out another $220 for a new or should I say refurbished alternator. That was the last time I bought ANYTHING from them. There is a car part warehouse not too far from where I live where I can buy brand new parts including alternators, although it is slighty higher in salesprice, it was worth it IMO.
Now if I ever need anything for my car, I go to any other parts store, the junkyard or as a last resort, the dealership (<----expensive, but worth it).
My current car is a 2000 Kia Sephia LS
So what did I learned from all this? Don't trust Autozone or any other place that sells refurbished starters/alternators as they will fail within a short amount of time, no matter how long it was placed in the vehicle. For me, it was in 1 month before it failed....YIKES!!!!