Rockauto fail

I bought a radiator for a 2004 Honda pilot. When I went to put the new one in I discovered it was the wrong one. I found that all the ones listed with a description are the wrong size and are missing a bung. I will have to just send it back and buy one from Advanced. They show the correct one but they are a lot more expensive.

Is this common? I have just started using them more because a rash of Advanced Autos bad or wrong parts they have been giving me. I can't wait to get on different work hours so I can try NAPA again.

If you have a known good part number then try amazon. Almost always cheaper than advance auto.

Rock auto ships the same or the next day. I get it a few days later. Amazon takes almost a week to get it out the door. I need this soon as car is now down. I will have to order one from Advance tomorrow.

Never had any issues from RockAuto. I have been using them for many years.

Sounds like a fluke. Never had an issue with parts from them.

I like RA, but have had 2 issues with orders, neither will stop me from using them in the future. One was the filler neck for my 1g neon, not quite exact fit. I was in a need it now situation so I had to do some fab work with it and the original to make it fit. The second was with wipers bought in advance during one if their blowout sales, no fit on the crv (rest of the cars where ok), as this was a stock up situation for me, it was past the return date, after recheck in their catalog to make sure I did not blow it, I sent them a note their catalog was in error so others would not have the same issue, I got back a is to bad it's more than 30 days, instead of we'll fix our catalog.

Hopefully it's just growing pains.

I've had incorrect parts from RA. I contacted them, spoke to a real person who sent out the right part, with a return shipping label in the box for the wrong part to be sent back at my leisure. No complaints here.

I've ordered a ton of parts from RA and I've only had one fitment issue with a set of plug wires for the 86 MR2. They refunded me and told me to just keep them. Pretty good batting average and decent customer service if you ask me.

Just a fluke. They are still batting 1.000 for me on nearly dozen orders over the last two years.

TGMF wrote: I've had incorrect parts from RA. I contacted them, spoke to a real person who sent out the right part, with a return shipping label in the box for the wrong part to be sent back at my leisure. No complaints here.

This has been my experience too. They don't screw up often, and when they do they fix it quickly with little to no grief.

After buying from them for over 5 years I finally got one wrong part - a brake hose for the F250. Still not sure if they sent the wrong one or I grabbed the wrong part number. There are like 3 or 4 different configurations based on 2wd/4wd, GVW, etc. It was only $10 so I haven't worried about sending it back.

They still have a better record than any of the local chain places on correct parts, although I have beat RA's prices at Advance Auto a couple times by leveraging online discounts with rewards program discounts and picking up local to beat shipping.

I think that it just depends on the car, the part and what day you order, just like any other car parts place. I just find that I would rather deal with RA as going to 4 parts places on a Saturday afternoon trying to find a part and failing to find an intelligent parts person to even talk to. Usually I am told that they dont carry such a part when the website clearly shows that the part is in stock. After expending a little effort, they admit that I am right and the part exists. It doesnt seem to matter who I am doing business with: Autozone, Oreilly's , NAPA, Advance or Pep Boys. There is a nearby mom and pop autoparts place but they have to order it just the same and can generally get it to me within two days. The only problem there is when I am looking for a part for the MR-2 Spyder. Hardly anyone consistently carries those parts. I can say that I prefer to deal with an informed counter person but that seems to be an oxymoron.

I've used the rock literally thousands of times when I was racing and building cars. I've had only two problems. One was like yours a catalog issue however not a Rock Auto problem all the parts stores had bad listing on the same Year make model but move the year one up and proper part was found. The only other problem was a fuel pump that died two weeks after replacement! One call and the new pump along with a call tag for the faulty pump was on its way the same day. I love the rock in fact I'm about to place an order for a fuel pump for a 66 f500 with a 330 v8 that no local store even has a listing for! When I looked it up for giggles got the part number and called around locally as we needed the truck (water truck at the dirt track) no one had stock and they wanted 4-5 days to get it @ 5x the price.

Only had one wrong part from them so far, they sent a completely wrong pair of brake discs. Probably ordered close to 100 different parts from them at this point.

Never had a wrong or bad part from RA. Their closeout notifications are great for older cars and who doesn't like older cars.... stock up time.

Only thing w/ RA is shipping orders from different locations that may add up, but still ain't bad most of the time. Shop wisely.

RA has been good to me. One instance, part arrived damaged. One phone call later, a replacement was on the way, and the cost to return ship broken part was more than it was worth....so they bagged that idea. So basically they trusted me that it was broken. Box wasn't damaged, it was just bad from the factory.

I've had one blatantly wrong part from RA, ordered a window crank handle got some random tailgate latch. They fixed it quick, though. Then, I also had a catalog part number issue, front caliper part numbers on my Impreza were switch left to right. Everybody had that one wrong.

44 orders last year from RockAuto and not one issue with a single thing. I'm already up over 20 orders so far this year, again, perfect.

Good to hear that Rock Auto has been treating you guys well. To the OP--- mistakes happen--- did you contact Rock Auto and let them know? It seems from the other posts here that they'd at least make an effort to make things right.

When I was replacing the valve in my Civic, I ended up with a catalog error from RA. They had the valve for the regular D17 under 01-05 Civic (All) which wouldn't fit my LDA. They made it right, and removed the erroneous catalog entry from their website.

I've ordered RockAuto several times. Only had one issue and never did get it straight although to RA's credit the person on the phone tried to make it right. Just couldn't though. Found the issue was Miata Anti-Roll Bar links are listed backwards in their online catalog. Right side listed is actually left and left side listed is actually right. Won't be an issue if you order pairs but if you only need one to replace a broke one then it becomes an issue.

anyone ever had better than a 5% discount at rock auto?

I like RA but usually find parts cheaper on ebay. I have bought 3 really cheap new radiators from ebay (2 all aluminum ~100 and one with plastic buyit now $38 shipped. One was damaged in shipping, and had a leak. The seller just sent a replacement, after i emailed a photo. Didnt have to mess with returning the damaged one,and the local scrap yard paid ~$10 for the junk one.

pjbgravely wrote: I bought a radiator for a 2004 Honda pilot. When I went to put the new one in I discovered it was the wrong one. I found that all the ones listed with a description are the wrong size and are missing a bung. I will have to just send it back and buy one from Advanced. They show the correct one but they are a lot more expensive. Is this common? I have just started using them more because a rash of Advanced Autos bad or wrong parts they have been giving me. I can't wait to get on different work hours so I can try NAPA again.

Wrong/mislabeled parts is incredibly common, especially the cheaper you go. Usually it is due to over-consolidation of part numbers.

One more reason why we don't like installing customer supplied parts. We have no control over the parts supplier, no leverage for reimbursement if they waste our time by getting us the wrong part.

A couple weeks ago I helped a friend put in a new front axle on the B6 S4 that he bought from me. The rock auto axle was < $75, a new dealer axle was $500. We got it apart Saturday afternoon and discovered that while the rock auto axle would bolt up, it was a 27mm diameter axle, while stock was 32mm...

Fortunately, the local independent parts store managed to source a better axle for $120 or so, available Sunday morning, so we put that one in and the rock auto axle went back.