April Showers Bring...

Are you tired of cold water splashing down the back of your neck because your sunroof weatherstripping is cracked and aged? Is your arm getting wet from the rain finding its way in through your disintegrating window weatherstripping? If so, it's time to replace the door and window weatherstripping / molding on your car. RockAuto carries Fairchild Industries and Metro Moulded rubber products to protect the interior of your vehicle from moisture, dust, wind and glass rattle. Whether you just need one window channel or a complete rubber replacement kit, RockAuto has you covered. From Acura to Volvo, find weatherstrip and molding parts under the Body-Exterior category in the RockAuto catalog.

And don't forget to order a Lisle molding removal tool to make the job even easier!

Questions for MotorWeek

MotorWeek has been airing on local PBS stations for over thirty years. They test 150 new cars and trucks each season! Do you have questions for the crew at MotorWeek? Maybe you wonder if anybody on the crew got to take the Bugatti Veyron home for the weekend? The MotorWeek crew will be answering questions on Twitter.com, Wednesday, April 23rd and other select Wednesdays starting at 12:00 noon (EST). Just include #askmwcrew in your tweet and the crew will see it. See other questions and answers by searching Twitter for #askmwcrew or by following twitter.com/motorweek.

Forum of the Month

Volkswagen Owners Club is a premier Volkswagen forum on the Internet. Find discussions related to the VW Golf, Jetta, Passat, Beetle, EOS, Rabbit, GTI, CC, Bus, Touareg, Tiguan, TDI and more. Whether you are looking for answers or have advice to give, you will find a topic to learn from or a place to share your experience and knowledge. Registration is fast, free and simple!


If you are the administrator or member of a forum and you would like to see your website featured in an upcoming newsletter and receive a discount code to share with your members, contact cynthia@rockauto.com.

Repair Mistakes & Blunders

Tell us about your most infamous auto repair blunder or unconventional fix. Use your woe to help others avoid similar mistakes or share off-the-wall solutions that worked (at least for a while!). Please e-mail your story to flamur@rockauto.com. Include your mailing address and if you would like a RockAuto T-Shirt (please let us know your shirt size) or Hat if we publish your story. See the T-Shirts and Hats under Tools & Universal Parts in the catalog. The story will be credited using only your first name and your vague geographic location (state, province, country, continent, etc.) so you can remain semi-anonymous!

Automotive Trivia

What did the three points on the Mercedes-Benz star represent when the star was trademarked in 1909?

A. Church, people and nation.
B. The partnership of Gottlieb Daimler, Karl Benz and Mercedes Jellinek.
C. The use of Daimler Moteren Gesellschaft (DMG) engines on land, in the water and in the air.

Answer below

Taking Parts to a Mechanic

“You wouldn’t take your own steak into a restaurant and ask them to cook it for you, would you?” is the rhetorical question that always comes up in discussions about whether or not it is OK to bring parts into a professional repair shop for installation.

No, I personally would not take a steak into a restaurant. I am not that interested in steaks. Most restaurants probably have access to better steaks at lower cost then I could ever hope to stumble upon at the grocery store. I also would never bring my own box of wine to a restaurant because I know very little about wine and one of the main reasons I go to restaurants is to try new foods. Sure, that gallon of wine in my fridge is a thirst quencher, but I can drink that at home.

However, there are plenty of wine aficionados that bring their own favorite wines into restaurants. The customer often pays the restaurant a “corkage fee” so the restaurant’s costs are covered and a profit is still made. There are steak aficionados, deer hunters and fishermen that bring their own steaks into restaurants too. Of course, they do not take their meat into a chain restaurant that is highly proceduralized or automated. Nobody says, “Put a chunk of the salmon I caught on that Filet-O-Fish.” Nobody wants to upset the health inspector. People with their own meat identify the proper restaurants beforehand and those restaurants are happy to have their business.

Common sense also applies to auto repair shops. In the past, I have taken auto parts into shops for installation and I will do it in the future too. Sometimes I do not have the tools or skills to do the repair. Sometimes I decide the maintenance or repair needs to get done, but I just do not have the time to install the parts I bought weeks ago. I did not have the tools or time to replace the clutch on my wife’s 1987 Mazda, but I greatly enjoyed choosing the perfect clutch at RockAuto and having a chance to handle it before it was installed on the car. Wine aficionados sniff corks and auto enthusiasts want to touch their clutches!

I do most work myself and I am not a frequent customer of any one shop. I am just a guy that walks in off the street, but I have never been told, “no.” In fact, every repair shop over the years has seemed very happy to have my business. If you are nervous about taking parts into a repair shop, you should not be. Would you be nervous about asking a plumber to install that cool new sink you bought? They just say either yes or no. Here are a few tips to calm your nerves:

• You have already done it. If you have ever been to a professional mechanic, then you have already taken “your parts” into a shop. In the mechanic’s eyes, much of your vehicle is composed of “your parts.” For most repairs, he or she is going to have to disassemble and reassemble parts that were already on the car. The mechanic wants to avoid surprises that will make the quote he gave you inaccurate, mess up his schedule or otherwise cost him money. Is he going to be more nervous about installing a box of new parts on your well maintained vehicle or is he going to be more nervous about the heat damage, stripped fasteners, collision damage, incorrectly installed parts and other headaches that might be lurking on a poorly maintained car that limps into his service bay?
  
  
• Ask and discuss in advance. First thing, tell the shop that you would like them to use your parts. That way they can politely say no if it breaks any of their shop or franchise rules. If they have their own preferred part, then they have an opportunity to explain its advantages. If they are OK with your parts, then they can include your parts in their job quotes right from the beginning. Do not wait until the car is disassembled and up on the lift and the shop has written an estimate before you mention you would like to bring in your own parts. A price quote is a holistic thing factoring in all sorts of costs and risks. Replacing a simple part like a heater core may take fifteen minutes on one car model and eight hours on another. Waiting for the quote and then asking, “How much if I bring my own heater core?” is like getting a quote for a new roof and then asking, “What if I supply the nails?” It is a good way to create a lot of awkward moments and misunderstandings. Let the shop know in advance.
  
  
• Allow the shop to make a profit. Most or all of the controversy around bringing your own parts to a shop is probably centered on the cost of the parts. Shops often add a mark-up onto what they pay for parts. This is not necessarily a bad thing. It is just part of the shop’s business model that lets them make money and stay in business. Customers that bring in their own parts might offer to pay the shop the auto parts equivalent of a wine “corkage fee.” The customer still can save money (if their parts came from RockAuto) and they get to use their preferred parts.
  
  
• Separate out diagnostics. If you do not know what is wrong with your car, but you may want to acquire your own parts (and perhaps do the work yourself), then tell that to the mechanic in advance and offer to pay for diagnostics separately. The repair shop does not want to spend money diagnosing a car and then have the customer disappear without paying anything. The professional diagnosis might also show your own diagnosis was wrong or incomplete and in that case, you will have to rethink your plan. For example, maybe the vehicle could benefit from the new universal joints you brought in, but the mechanic discovers a bad axle shaft bearing is most likely causing the symptoms you noticed.
  
  
• Focus on the important parts. Make it clear that you brought the parts important to you and it is fine for the mechanic to use his own incidental parts as necessary. No shop wants to repeatedly stop work, contact the customer and wait while the customer runs off to get more parts.
  
  
• Warranty. Warranties are a big issue when this topic is discussed over the water cooler. People think the mechanic might not give the part a warranty because he did not buy it. I personally have never had warranties be an issue at all. Shops typically do not “warranty” parts. The part manufacturer provides the warranty whether the mechanic or the customer buys it from the store. The mechanic should use the same procedures for warranty labor costs as he would if he bought the part himself. If the mechanic is just pessimistic about the success of the repair using your parts, then start the discussion process over again. You do not want somebody that expects failure or is having second thoughts about saying, “yes,” to work on your car. I have had shops do repairs with lots of labor like the installation of that new Mazda clutch. The shop saw I brought in a great clutch kit and there was never any reason for a special discussion about warranty hassles if the part turned out to be a dud.

Automotive Trivia Answer

What did the three points on the Mercedes-Benz star represent when the star was trademarked in 1909? A. Church, people and nation. B. The partnership of Gottlieb Daimler, Karl Benz and Mercedes Jellinek. Answer: C. The use of Daimler Moteren Gesellschaft (DMG) engines on land, in the water and in the air. (Mercedes was the name of Emil Jellinek's daughter. Jellinek ran a successful, turn-of-the-century racing team under the Mercedes name and he sold Daimler cars with "Mercedes" badges. The Mercedes trade name was registered by DMG in 1902.  Today's Mercedes-Benz three point star with a ring around it was patented by DMG in 1923. DMG and Benz & Cie did not merge into Daimler-Benz AG until 1926.) Back up to trivia question

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