Many people find Pete’s Auto Parts when they are searching for Car-Part.com or when they are searching ON car-part.com but they decide to go straight to the source. So what is the difference between buying used auto parts on Car-Part.com and buying direct from Pete’s Auto parts? This blog post will tell you.
What’s the diff?
At Pete’s Auto Parts we list all of our parts on car-part or www.car-part.com and we also list our parts on a number of other sites. We pay to put our parts on these sites so more customers will find us. There are many customers who search for used auto parts or car parts or car-part.com and that is how they discover us, searching on one of these websites. They also see our competitors’ parts that way. We aren’t afraid of that, we know we do a great job and have excellent pricing, and we often will match competitors prices, so we don’t mind if you search on a site like this, we know you’ll still end up at Pete’s Auto Parts! Car-Part.com shows many yards, which you may think is a good thing, and it CAN be, but we can also tell you why it’s also good to come straight to Pete’s Auto Parts.
Ease of Use
One main difference is that our site is easier to use. The old car-part.com interface has not changed in years and years. We keep making our site better and better! The car-part.com search has only one way for you to search, they provide drop downs for you to choose the year, make model and part type, and then there will be options to select. At Pete’s Auto Parts, you have options! You can use a year/make/model/part type drop down or look at recent arrivals, and when you search for a part it shows you all the options for that vehicle, then lets you filter down by options.
At Pete’s Auto Parts we also post videos of our engines running to our youtube channel https://www.youtube.com/@petesauto7873 and when you shop at our site you can get these links so you can hear the motor run before you purchase it!
Sometimes More is More
This is especially helpful when you don’t necessarily need to replace a part with the *exact* part that came on it, such as, a Ford Transit Connect van could come with headlamps with a chrome ring around them or with a black ring around them. Some Ford Transit Connect van owners would prefer a chrome ring even though their van originally came with black, so they can see all the options at Pete’s Auto Parts but at car-part.com they would only see the one their vehicle came with. Another Ford Transit Connect van owner might not care about the look of their headlight but they care that the chrome ones cost $80 more than the black ones, so they might choose to save a few bucks by selecting the black ringed lamps over the chrome ones.
Duplication
At car-part.com you will also notice a lot of the same parts listed over and over for different prices. This is because each salvage yard listing parts on car-part.com is allowed to tier the inventory of four other yards, so they can display those other yard’s parts as their own with a markup to cover shipping and handling. This isn’t a bad thing, but it gets confusing when you see the exact same part listed at multiple stores for different prices: who really has the part? Who should you buy from? When you shop at Pete’s Auto Parts, we list each part once, and we show our in stock parts first, then we list those parts we are bringing in from other facilities. But we are not limited to just four partners, we can get you parts from all over the country!
Part Availability
If you don’t see what you are looking for on our site, don’t worry, just reach out to us, you can call or text or email us and we can source the part you are looking for. We have a very high rate of filling part requests – 98% to be exact! Only 2 out of every 100 parts we are unable to find. When you are looking at car-part,com, you may not see what you need, but if you text, call or email Pete’s Auto Parts you will get a dedicated salesperson to chase down that part for you so you don’t have to do the legwork.
Rust Free Part Access
At car-part.com, they do not allow yards to tier the parts of any partners that are over a day away to ship, in fact you must put the parts on the truck at 11am or later and receive them the next day in order to show those parts, which means if you are in Michigan, you will never have access to rust free auto parts from a Michigan yard through car-part. It’s just not possible to ship parts from Texas to Michigan overnight in a cost effective way! The good news is, at Pete’s Auto Parts, we know many customers are willing to wait 2, 3, 4 even 5 days to get quality rust free parts from the south! So we will give you access to those parts and just let you know how many days they take to ship. Maybe you can’t wait that long, and that’s fine, we will show you the quick close parts that car-part.com does, but maybe you have a week before the vehicle is being worked on and you’d rather have a door that has never seen it snow!
Messaging
We will admit, some things are just as good at car-part.com as they are on our website! We can’t be better at everything. You can message a salesperson at any facility at car-part.com just like you can message us at Pete’s Auto Parts, the functions are very similar. One of the only differences with chatting is that at Pete’s, when you send a message, all of our accounting and sales staff can see it, but if you want to deal with someone in particular all you have to do is include their name. So if you’ve been buying parts from Brian for years, start your message with Brian and he’ll be the one to respond. Or if Dan is your man, include Dan’s name and he’ll be the one who responds. Same with Lindsey (our resident spanish speaker) and Tommy (who works in the front office at Pete’s and you’ve probably met if you’ve come in to pick up parts.) When you message on car-part, the first salesperson to respond to the chat gets the sale
Ability To Purchase
Here is where we shine! Unlike car-part.com, you can purchase a part without speaking to anyone if you buy from Pete’s Auto Parts directly. We are very happy to talk to you on the phone or over text or email, but when you don’t want to discuss anything, or maybe your work schedule prohibits you from reaching out during business hours, you can always buy a part from Pete’s without having to say a word. You can buy our parts online through a secure checkout process. You can’t do that at car-part.
Support Local
When you buy from Pete’s Auto Parts, you are supporting a small family business. We have 30 hardworking employees, 29 that live and work here in West Michigan. Dan started out in West Michigan, but moved to North Carolina, and we couldn’t bear to let him go, so he works from home! Anyway, the point is when you support a small business like Pete’s Auto Parts you are keeping your hard earned money in your community. That money is going to pay our people, and then their money is going to their rent and groceries and things of course, but also to other local businesses and to things like their kid’s sports activities or music lessons, or to local concerts or even to charities.
Summary
There are many reasons to buy parts at Pete’s Auto Parts directly instead of shopping on car-part.com. We hope we’ve convinced you, but if not, feel free to try it out for yourself, search for parts both ways, even make a purchase both ways and see what you like better. We understand we can’t be everyone’s cup of tea, but we do work hard to provide quality used auto parts at affordable prices. And we try to find the right part, fast!
Even if you decide that you don’t want to buy from Pete’s Auto Parts, we hope you’ll go with recycled parts from a locally owned and operated company, such as one of our friends and competitors Weller Auto Parts or Morris Rose Auto Parts or Premier Auto Parts or Schram Auto Parts or Grand Valley Auto Parts or Joe’s Auto Parts. Although we’d RATHER you search for used auto parts near me and purchase all your auto parts from Pete’s, our second choice is for you to stick with a family owned company instead of from a big consolidator or chain. We believe in supporting local!
Check us out on facebook! https://facebook.com/petesautoparts
Find videos of our vehicles running on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@petesauto7873
You can search for parts on our website at https://www.petesauto.net/parts/
If you would like to read more about Pete’s Auto Parts and about buying used auto parts, we have many more blog posts you can find below:
https://petesauto.net/used-car-parts/used-car-parts/
https://petesauto.net/used-car-parts/best-website-to-buy-used-car-parts/
https://petesauto.net/auto-body/aftermarket-car-parts/
https://petesauto.net/used-car-parts/why-buy-used-auto-parts/
https://petesauto.net/auto-body/battery-breakdown /
https://petesauto.net/auto-body/buying-a-used-engine-near-me/
https://petesauto.net/used-car-parts/salvage-yard-near-me/
https://petesauto.net/tires/buying-tires-near-me/
https://petesauto.net/tires/buying-tires-near-me/
https://petesauto.net/used-car-parts/used-auto-parts-near-me/
