NAPA and Advance Return Policies (Wrntys)

Guys:

I am about fed up with Advance since they grew so big. Back in my college days, i bought alot from them. They were cheap and had good quality parts (better then the autozoo)

Anyways, I have had my jeep since 96 and advance did not exist where I live now..

They look at my reciepts from 1996 like they are from Autozone, (even though they say advance) and it takes a battle to get them to honor the warranty. I often get "The part lasted 8 yrs what do you expect" The latest saga was my water pump bought in 2000. This was my 2nd water pump... The 1st one was in 96, 2nd in 2000 this in 2006. Anyways THey said you only get one lifetime replacement.

I have not seen this anywhere in their policies on webpage or in print. They also have had problems with their web page showing way differnt prices and not wanting to honor the prices

Anyone else had issues with them. The sad thing is autozoo is more customer friendly.

I now buy all my parts either from NAPA or OEM from chryslerpartsdirect.com often OE is cheaper suprisingly then napa but I have never gone wrong with their quality.

Here is my question on NAPA

In 2000 i had a napa alternator and belt purchased. They were great unitl i drove home from college and the alternator seperated.

This destroyed the serp. belt.

Napa gave me a new one of each.

6 yrs later, the belt has gone (squeels bad and just plane worn out)

So to the NAPA question:

I have the NAPA (Gates) belt, and the reciept showing the RETURN of the previous belt (the damaged one) where they credited me back

DO you think i will have isuses with them ??

not trying to be a dick, but i'm just wondering. if the parts lasted 6 years, are you really so strapped for cash that your gonna fight over a $40 belt every 6 years??? or the other parts for that matter??? i could see if it was several hundred or thousand. but dude??? people on average waste more money that that in a week. do you smoke??? that's alot more than $40 per week.

Nah no smoking for me... I agree with you and that was my origional thought and thats why I went out and bought an OE replacement from Mopar... But talking to others they convinced me to have them honor the wrntys because I paid for them up front in the price of the item so I should take advantage of them. Honestly if they honored the belt warranty I was going to offer the new belt to someone on since I have a new one

i work at an advance and we have a no hassle return policy. the people behind the counter can't give you any hassle about a returned part. the other day we had to warranty exchange an autozone battery because the customer insisted that they got it at our store.

i know if someone comes up to my counter with a busted alternator that's ours, or any part, i'll defect exchange it no questions asked (after i test it on the bench of course). that's sort of what a lifetime replacement is.

Thats the kind of service i once remembered from Advance... Never that bad but ive had cardone parts that i lost the reciept for and they hoored the wrnty since they were the only ones around that sold cardone so they knew they were theirs when they saw the yellow reman stamp and colored dots even though i lost the recpt.

Maybe its this one advnace, the entire staff are jerks about returns... what really got me was when i found a part on the website went in to get it and even had the print out and it rang up for 20 dollars more and he told me there was nothing he could do

I'm pretty sure the belts are not warrantied for life against normal belt wear. Now, an alternator, thats different because they usually last a long time, but a belt is a normal wear item.

I work at a Napa, it irritates me when people do stingy/greedy things to abuse the returns policy. I had someone bring back ignition cables (lifetime warranty) original box, origianl recipt after somthing like a decade. Not so bad because they are lifetime warranty but everyone knows these are normal wear items, how do people go through life worrying about nickels and dimes, he had planned this out some 8 years ago. People also frequently try to return the old part sealed in the box or even but a brick in the box. BTW, 6 years is about 6 times as long as I can get for my belts, my 4.0 eats them.

bajacalal said:

I'm pretty sure the belts are not warrantied for life against normal belt wear. Now, an alternator, thats different because they usually last a long time, but a belt is a normal wear item.

Click to expand...

i know at advance our dayco belts are only a 1yr warranty.

wilcharl said:

Maybe its this one advnace, the entire staff are jerks about returns... what really got me was when i found a part on the website went in to get it and even had the print out and it rang up for 20 dollars more and he told me there was nothing he could do

Click to expand...

that sucks. i see you're in DC. i used to work at the advance in McLean. the division manager cracked down on us for allowing returns on everything under the sun, so we had to start being bitches with returns.

i had that happen before, a customer picked up an alternator theyd ordered on partsamerica.com. i had to special order it (and print up a receipt for him to pay) then go into SOLO and cancel that order as soon as the guy left. worked just fine.

like most things in retail, if you're willing to bitch loud enough, you can get what you want, but i hate being the person in line behind someone raising a huge fuss over like 4$.

want to deal with bad returns? try pep boys.

XgeekstarX said:

i know at advance our dayco belts are only a 1yr warranty.

Click to expand...

poly cog are 1 year, top cog (with the sideways vent ribs) are lifetime.

Like i said... i already bought a new belt with the idea that the old one served its purpose... Did the same with PS pump... even though it was under wrnty too.. but after talking to some folks they said i should get it honored... if anyone wants a great gates belt they are welcome to have it