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Summer Heat Takes a Toll on Your Car’s Battery
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By Counterman
link hidden, please login to view NTN, the parent company of BCA Bearings, is proud to announce the launch of BCA’s 2024 Endless Summer promotion. During the promotion, BCA’s warehouse distributor customers can earn BCA-branded, premium merchandise with orders of BCA wheel hub assemblies, bearings and seals.
“We are thrilled to announce the BCA Endless Summer promotion” said Patrick Cronin, Marketing Manager, Automotive Aftermarket. “The Endless Summer theme evokes a relaxed and carefree feeling that we all strive to achieve; the same carefree feeling we want associated with using our premium parts. We are looking forward to summer and another great promotion.”
BCA’s Endless Summer promotion enables distributor customers to earn tiered packages of BCA branded merchandise with qualifying orders, which they can then use to conduct their own localized promotions. This allows the BCA-branded merchandise to reach every level of the distribution channel, from the parts professionals and service advisors who recommend BCA products to the technicians that install them.
The Endless Summer theme is meant to embody the warm summer feeling you wish would never end, and the promo items were selected to complement the theme and keep summer going long after Labor Day has come and gone. A floating stress relief keychain, waterproof phone pouch and backpack keep your valuables high and dry during a day at the beach. A misting water bottle and insulated picnic basket keep you and your snacks cool as the classic triangle kite drifts above in the summer breeze. Get out of the sun with the pop up shelter as you relax on the beach lounge pad, and then fire up the mini tabletop fire pit to roast marshmallows for smores. Now you’re living the Endless Summer with BCA.
BCA’s 2024 Endless Summer promotion runs from May 1 through June 30, 2024. For participation details, please contact a BCA Sales Representative or Customer Relations Advocate.
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By Counterman
or our commercial customers, price and quality are two of the most important considerations when purchasing parts from you (and your competitors). The third is availability, but at least we have some control over what gets stocked in our stores. Barring supply chain issues and material shortages, keeping the right mix of parts available is up to our buyers and inventory specialists. Unless your store’s pricing strategy is out of line with the competition, pricing (and quality) complaints fall squarely on the vendor/manufacturer.
This is not to say that if you are experiencing price, quality, or availability issues with a current vendor that you shouldn’t already be looking for alternate sourcing for the affected SKUs or product lines. During the latest UAW strike, GM and Stellantis parts warehouses were crippled by walkouts, leaving their dealer networks scrambling to provide parts for their customers. Many dealerships were forced to bolster their inventories with quality aftermarket-equivalent products just to keep work flowing through their service departments.
link hidden, please login to view For the aftermarket, this was a perfect storm of opportunity. There was less competition from the local dealership in terms of parts sales, and those same dealers were calling on aftermarket suppliers more often for parts they could not readily obtain through their OEM channels. Due to the perception that OE parts are the best option for their vehicle brand (and a need to provide the same level of service, warranty coverage, and quality) these requests were often for premium product lines. Dealerships are generally unwilling to risk their reputation by installing bargain-basement parts, and the expectation that dealership parts and service will carry a premium price tag silences many objections well ahead of the sale. Independent shops specializing in repair or resale of luxury and performance brands also enjoy a more quality-conscious clientele willing to pay a premium for their services.
There is, however, a subset of dealerships (and some general repair shops) for whom price trumps all other considerations. Your local “buy-here-pay-here” used car lot might come to mind, reconditioning and “flipping” (usually lower-end) auction vehicles, while offering very limited warranty terms. For this market, requests will usually gravitate toward the “least expensive” parts option. Even the most quality-conscious shops sometimes need to hit a “price-point” to stay competitive, and we all have that DIY customer who just wants “the cheapest thing that fits” because they are “trading it in soon” (even though they’ve been telling you that each time they’ve been in for the last three years!).
In an effort to accommodate all types of customer needs, we are likely to offer multiple lines for most of our “commodity” parts. Filters, brakes, chassis parts, belts, lighting, wipers, and fluids are some of the most common categories in which we offer diverse price and quality options. This isn’t necessarily an issue of price versus quality, but rather comparing the value realized from an item’s price and its quality. For maintenance items like filters, an installer might have a “menu” pricing schedule for oil changes, air and cabin filters, and wiper blades. These services generally include labor at no “additional” cost, and the parts already have a recommended service interval. Selling at a fixed price can be tricky when the costs are variable, so shops often use value-line parts for these services. If the shop advertises “any air filter $49.95 installed,” you can bet they will choose your $12 store brand filter over the $25 premium filter whenever they can! These parts will likely provide sufficient service life, and the cost savings to the shop offsets some of the lost labor revenue. On our side of the counter, oil is usually marketed as a loss leader priced to get customers through the front door. Shops treat oil changes the same way, as an opportunity to get the vehicle in the shop to upsell more profitable work.
We would never knowingly offer a product that doesn’t meet some sort of minimum quality standards, nor would we recommend a product that won’t meet a customer’s (reasonable) expectations. The use of “features and benefits” as a selling tool helps classify the customer’s needs, explains the differences in pricing and quality, and minimizes disappointment by customers who expected premium performance and extended service life from the bare-bones product they selected based on price alone.
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By NAPA
Christian Eckes took the NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series points lead on Friday night with a stout fourth-place performance at Texas Motor Speedway. The driver of the No. 19 Gates Hydraulics Chevrolet Silverado RST captured his third top-five finish of the season and scored 50 points on the night, the second-most of all drivers in the field. Eckes led 31 laps, the only driver to have led laps in each race this season, and tallied his third top-five finish in the last four events.
For the second-consecutive weekend, Eckes qualified on the front row and was a mainstay in the top five for the entire event. He settled into second at the drop of the green flag and challenged for the lead near the midway point of the opening stage. The first lead change of the night occurred when Eckes powered his Gates Hydraulics Chevy to the lead on lap 17 and paced the field for 21 circuits. He surrendered the lead on lap 38 and collected nine points at the end of Stage 1 on lap 40 while running second.
Crew chief Charles Denike brought Eckes to pit road under the stage caution for four fresh tires, fuel, and a minor air pressure adjustment to tighten his balance. Eckes restarted second on lap 47 and maintained position inside the top five for the ensuing 35-lap run. An improved handling balance and consistent lap times netted Eckes another eight points at the end of Stage 2 on lap 80 by running in third position.
Eckes was armed with another batch of fresh tires, fuel, and minor adjustments to fine-tune the handling during the second stage caution. After restarting third on lap 87, he waged war for the runner-up position and gained control of it by lap 100. He ran there until a cycle of green flag pit stops began on lap 119. Eckes made his final stop on lap 129 just before a caution waved. He was able to stay on the lead lap in fourth position and in contention for the victory. He made another fierce run for the race lead on a lap 150 and led until lap 158. During the final 10 laps, Eckes fought valiantly for one final charge at the lead but took the checkered flag in fourth position for his third top-five and sixth top-10 of the season.
“Not a bad points night,” Eckes said. “I thought we’d have a pretty good shot at the win there, but just went down into Turns 1 and 2 and got way too tight and slid up the racetrack. It is what it is. I’m proud of the No. 19 Gates Hydraulics team for making the improvements that they did. Our mile-and-a-half stuff has definitely shown a little bit of an improvement. We still have a little bit of a ways to go, but we’ll see how it goes.”
Start / Finish: 2 / 4
Points Standing / Total: 1 / 287 pts. (+2)
Next Race: Saturday, May 4, Kansas Speedway
How to Watch or Listen: 8:00 p.m. ET on FS1, MRN or SiriusXM
NAPA:
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