Does anyone know what are the main warehouses for Rock Auto?

 

They may have a warehouse in Madison, Wis., associated with the home office.

Many online retailers (this has grown to nearly 60% of products at my employer this year) are trending away from housing inventory and toward drop shipments from suppliers or vendors. That's why your Rock order may source from more than one location.

 

i think that is where their headquarters is

 

I've gotten shipments from RockAuto in Carquest boxes, shipped from the OEM, and other means of transport. That having been said, since they went away from having live customer support available (no one to call when the warehouse leaves out an item or something happens in transit) I won't be using them anymore.

If I can't get in touch with a live human being when my order is screwed up, I'm not going to use your services again.

 

If you guys don't support your local auto parts stores they will be gone.
I myself would never order ordinary common parts or fluids on line.

Having said that, i've used Rockauto, fleabay and Amazon for harder to get or much cheaper parts.
Rockauto i will agree has much cheaper 3rd party parts and i've never been disappointed by them.

If i want new OEM parts from fleabay or Amazon i always look at the seller to make sure its a dealership selling likely over stock parts.
Beware, there's a lot of supposedly OEM parts out there online which are cleverly packaged as OEM..

I've also used online stores like:
Quadratec
Morris 4X4
AutoAnything
Rustys offroad
and more i forgot,
Got some good deals form them for hard to find parts.

 

I use local stores if I need something that day, but Rockauto's prices are hard to beat. I like their website too.

Amazon, I feel like looking for parts on there is a crap shoot. Search and filtering options aren't the best, if you want to look at options it's often too difficult.

 

I fully believe in supporting local businesses when economically feasible to do so.

The local hardware store has better quality lumber than Lowes, and it's a minimally higher price than Lowes.

The local independent grocery store is close to price competitive with the chains, and has a better deli counter, so we shop there.

That having been said...

When the local parts store's pricing is double to triple for the same part, it's not a tough choice, the online store gets the purchase. $10-15 difference? Unimportant, and I can usually get it the same day from the local guy. Double or more? Not even a discussion.

Fluids, hoses, etc, I go to the local NAPA, but a when loaded name brand strut is 40% of what the local NAPA charges when ordered from an online distributor, guess who gets the business?

 

Good point. but i will never go back to autozone. last time i went there i needed a coil for my truck. i told them what they asked me about my truck. the sales guy went and got the part, brought it to the counter and i paid for it. when i got home and was putting it in, it wouldn't fit. turns out they gave me a coil for the 3.7L engine from another generation f150. so i took it back and told the salesman that this is the wrong part. he kept on telling me that it is the right part and that i was doing something wrong. he had pist me off at that point. i told him to go try and put it on yourself and see if it fits. i bet him 50 dollars it wouldn't fit. and of course he was to much of a ***** to do it. so i walked behind the counter to go talk to chris (store manager that i know personaly) about what i was given. he agreed with me that it was the wrong part and he went and found the right one. i went and put the part on that chris gave me and what do ya know it fits. chris is the only person there that knows anything everyone else is a bunch of dumb asses

 

At least there is one smart person at your local auto zone, not a one at mine so I also refuse to do business with them after multiple issues. I go to Napa, O'reillys or the cheapest online retailer.

 

no smart people at your autzone either? Lol. i usually go to napa or use rockauto. there is an o'reily in maysville but have never been.