A lil' something for you professional parts peddlers:

Oh so true!

NSFW or kids (language):

http://www.youtube.com/user/1983eville#p/u/4/7ObG14P8bVQ

The dialog itself is pretty amusing, but I'm really starting to loathe that stupid robot movie generator. Just kills the humour for me. Whoever created that thing needs a smack upside the head.

OH MAN! I love that. I get people calling all the time that say "you sent me the wrong part". I look and they ordered the part with a part number over the internet. I then ask "does the part number on the package match the part number on your invoice". When they say "Yes", I just slowly raise my palm to my face.

If only I could give that response to some of my customers.

What, no mention of the "lifetime warranty" on brakes?

or

"What kind of car are you working on?"
"A Dodge caravan"
"What year?"
"1995. Wait! I think it's a 97."
"What motor?"
"I don't know."
(face palm)

One that I get often is

me- "Okay, what model are we searching for parts for today?"
owner - "Iss a Poe-sh"
me - "Right, what model?"
owner - "I tol' yoo awready, iss a Poe-sh"
me - Facepalm...

(it's hard to type out how these people talk. Mushmouth...)

I had a guy come in a couple days ago who had obviously been huffing paint, that was nice.

Jay wrote: I'm really starting to loathe that stupid robot movie generator. Just kills the humour for me.

That is the humour for me. I love those videos.

My favorite from a couple decades ago:
"I need a thing for my Toyota."

"What model?"

"Its an SR5."

Facepalm.

My favorites are the older guys who come in looking for parts for their chevy.

And by chevy they mean 84' K2500 4x4 with a three-fiddy.

Ya see, they made a lot of 'chevys' over the years and I'm not paid enough to read your mind.

Ford mercurys were always interesting too.

I always remember the one guy coming in and asking for something for his commercial motor SBC. Uh, no, it has very little (including parts-wise) in common with a 350, it was some bass-ackwards 60's era commercial truck with a 357 or something ludicrous like that. I was 16 and working at Cambodian Tire, I mean I was damn good, but no amount of cross referencing was going to get me that part!

When I worked at my dad's speed shop, I had a guy come in wanting a butterfly. At the same time he did this weird spinning hands motion. I said, 'you want what?' and he repeated himself, including the spinning hand motions. Only now he was sounding a little pissed. I said 'I don't know what that is' and for the third time he repeated 'a butterfly' accompanied by the hand motions, only now he sounded pretty angry. After attempting to scale the language/communication/intelligence wall a couple more times (with him getting madder by the moment) it turned out he wanted a distributor rotor.

Then there was the guy who wanted 'lifters'. This guy was a deaf/mute, he had to communicate via a notepad. So I scribbled 'hydraulic or solid?' and pushed the note back. He read it, his face scrunched up and he scribbled a big '?' and pushed it back. I underlined my sentence and pushed it back to him. Again a big '?'. After much scribbling and pointing, it turned out he wanted a pair of extened leaf spring shackles to lift the rear of his car. Thus, 'lifters'.

About Chebbys: the famous line was 'They all the same, ain't they?'. Let's not get started on the time I had to tell a guy with a TransAm it had an Olds 403 in it; I thought for a moment there was going to be a fistfight.

In reply to Curmudgeon:

In some areas 'lifters' are also called push up bras.

HiTempguy wrote: I always remember the one guy coming in and asking for something for his commercial motor SBC. Uh, no, it has very little (including parts-wise) in common with a 350, it was some bass-ackwards 60's era commercial truck with a 357 or something ludicrous like that. I was 16 and working at Cambodian Tire, I mean I was damn good, but no amount of cross referencing was going to get me that part!

There was a 366 ci big block truck motor that was real difficult to find stuff for. Some of the drag race guys used to go looking for them for the basis for a race engine because they had a different deck height, IIRC.

Curmudgeon wrote: There was a 366 ci big block truck motor that was real difficult to find stuff for. Some of the drag race guys used to go looking for them for the basis for a race engine because they had a different deck height, IIRC.

DING! WinRAR, thanks for reminding me. That was a bad day...

Also, the time where "I" ordered the wrong running boards for a ~25 year old guy's mom's 2000-ish Dodge Dakota. He said it was an extended cab, but it was actually a quad cab. Apparently he came in on my day off and was ready to punch me in the face (was a mother's day present).

Me: Parts this is Evan.

Customer: I need a part for my car.

M: Ok, what kind of car is it.

C: It is a XL2.

M: A Saturn SL2?

C: Yes a XL2.

Me: Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu

Also had a person come to the Saturn parts department and ask for a part for the chevy engine in his Winnebago....

I had a good one today. Guy comes in and goes up to one of my coworkers to do a return on a super cheapo ball joint. To do a return we need a receipt OR photo ID. This guy had neither. My coworker explained this several times before it sunk in and the guy flew off the handle.

He stood in the doorway yelling about how he made so much more money and my fellow employee was a f*g. I was annoyed and mentioned if he was so rich, why was he returning such a cheap part? Much more yelling and name calling ensued on his end. He ended up calling the customer service line and continued to make fun of us while talking to them.

Sadly, I'm sure we'll get in trouble over it.

On a lighter note, yesterday I had a couple who wondered why their newish wiper blades were so terrible. I went ahead and pulled the blade guards off for them.

My fave, during the delivery days:

"Here" counterdude hands me a box with a part in it. "(redacted) down at (redacted) ordered this (hands box). This isn't going to fit, but I'm tired of arguing with him. Hang around until he realizes it won't fit, and then give him this box (hands me box with different part). This will fit."

It went exactly like that, too.

I've been waiting for a thread like this!

Anymore, if someone tells you its a 1985 toyota, I automatically assume it's a truck. That really goes with anything when they jsut tell me the make and year.

The thing that makes me laugh the most is mispronouncing car names. The funniest to me is still a Jeep Libra.

This one takes the cake:

This girl came in and bought a gallon of dex-cool for her blazer, we ring it up and she leaves. Not ten minutes before, someone had returned a gallon jug of Castrol motor oil, and it was still sitting on the counter. You can see where this is going. In a hurry, she grabs a jug, and leaves. As soon as we realize what she's done, she's already headed down the street. We figure that she'll hopefully realize what's happened, return it and pick up her antifreeze. We had hoped in vain.

About 2 hours later she brings back the oil jug.... empty. Yes, this girl had poured the whole freakin' gallon of oil into her raditator. She wanted her money back, this was at about 7PM and all the shops had already closed up for the day. Luckily one of our guys had just clocked out and volunteered himself to flush her coolant system for her. Still to this day I have never seen anyone top that..... yet.

what no rotaries? cadillac converters? calibers? or something bolted to a hogshead?

I'm a big fan of the people who roll up in a $40,000 car and buy a single cheapo wiper blade. That's only after I tell them we don't carry refills.

Ranger50 wrote: what no rotaries? cadillac converters? calibers? or something bolted to a hogshead?

I've heard it called a hogshead many times and I'm in Canada.

Curmudgeon wrote:

HiTempguy wrote: I always remember the one guy coming in and asking for something for his commercial motor SBC. Uh, no, it has very little (including parts-wise) in common with a 350, it was some bass-ackwards 60's era commercial truck with a 357 or something ludicrous like that. I was 16 and working at Cambodian Tire, I mean I was damn good, but no amount of cross referencing was going to get me that part!

There was a 366 ci big block truck motor that was real difficult to find stuff for. Some of the drag race guys used to go looking for them for the basis for a race engine because they had a different deck height, IIRC.

My dad had a GMC with one. I had a terrible time getting parts for it. Of course being 12 didn't help my case but pretty much everyone I delt with at the only decent old time parts store at insisted anything smaller than a 396 had to be a small block. They really didn't appreciate when I pulled a valve cover in their lot and brought it inside to show them that the gaskets they kept giving me were notgoing to work and they should open one of their many books and look up the right one. Luckily one of their customers showed me how most gasket problems can be solved with a bit of copper RTV after he stopped laughing.

PubBurgers wrote: I'm a big fan of the people who roll up in a $40,000 car and buy a single cheapo wiper blade. That's only after I tell them we don't carry refills.

Nothing wrong with refills, we use them on cars that are well over $40,000

Big goofy plastic wiper blades look pretty stupid on anything built before the 1980's.

My customers would leave and never come back if they found somthing like that on a '57 T-bird.

Shawn

Man, hearing stories like that make me so happy I never tried to turn my hobby/passion into a job in the industry. I have a big respect to those of you that have to live with that garbage every day! (where's the "thumbs up" icon?)