Drawbacks to living in a small town

M

MTTod

Registered User
Went to get new plugs yesterday. NAPA has them so I drive 25 miles to town. Get there and they only have 4. Next closest store has 2 so there's 6 but I only have 1 check.

Go back in to write the check over the amount and the guy finds 2 more plugs! Get to checkout and they're charging me $6.90 PER PLUG! I call BS and get back on the phone.

Find 6 at NAPA north for $4.50 each and drive 15 miles more. Pickup the plugs, head home (now 40 miles away). Get there and find out they gave me single instead of double platinum. So much for getting the job done now.

Call them back today. No double platinums, have to be ordered, 2 days out. Call the first NAPA back and they say the computer was screwed up. The price is $4.50 each.

All that driving, all that time, car's down for another day, HUGE pain in the a$$ and end up back at the beginning. A lot of times I hate living in Montana.
 
Oh we have speed limits! Thanks to the tourists driving like idiots they reinstated them after a couple of years.

Traffic related deaths didn't go up but speeds did. The highway patrol put out a report. Montana residents showed an average speed increase of 3 or 4 MPH over prior limits. Out of state people were travelling an average of 8 or 9 MPH higher than before. They decided there was too much risk. The number of stops for excessive speed or reckless driving increased too.

Really sucked for us locals. I had a 280Z and would drive it for work when I serviced the machines in the outlying areas. 100 or 110 MPH makes a 100 mile trip pretty short!
 
MTTod said:
Call them back today. No double platinums, have to be ordered, 2 days out. Call the first NAPA back and they say the computer was screwed up. The price is $4.50 each.
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Did you throw this one at them:
WELL! This place a regular geographical oddity, ain't it?-- two damn weeks from everywhere.
 
I don't think it's just the small towns that have this problem, seems like they have to order everything no matter where you live these days. I even get this from the Ford dealer in town and I live in a medium size town - 2 hours from anywhere.
 
MTTod said:
Went to get new plugs yesterday. NAPA has them so I drive 25 miles to town. Get there and they only have 4. Next closest store has 2 so there's 6 but I only have 1 check.

Go back in to write the check over the amount and the guy finds 2 more plugs! Get to checkout and they're charging me $6.90 PER PLUG! I call BS and get back on the phone.

Find 6 at NAPA north for $4.50 each and drive 15 miles more. Pickup the plugs, head home (now 40 miles away). Get there and find out they gave me single instead of double platinum. So much for getting the job done now.

Call them back today. No double platinums, have to be ordered, 2 days out. Call the first NAPA back and they say the computer was screwed up. The price is $4.50 each.

All that driving, all that time, car's down for another day, HUGE pain in the a$$ and end up back at the beginning. A lot of times I hate living in Montana.
Click to expand...


Are you aware that you drove on an 80 mile round trip!:eek: You would have been better off to just pay the $6.90 per plug and you would have probably came out AHEAD after paying for gas! Not to mention that you still have another trip to make! LOL!:D :D :D
Just my .02 (not meant to be offensive):D
DB91
 
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Re: Re: Drawbacks to living in a small town

Mike8675309 said:
Did you throw this one at them:
WELL! This place a regular geographical oddity, ain't it?-- two damn weeks from everywhere.
Click to expand...

LMAO! Of course, that movie was set in MS. We're still 2 weeks from everywhere. Order on the internet or be prepared to wait. LOL!
 
I thought about that but it was one of those situations where everyone stands with their mouths hanging open. Uhhhh.... well I guess our computer is wrong but we can't fix it. Just pi$$ed me off! Besides I was driving the little Mazda beater so the extra 30 miles weren't expensive.

I did finally get the right plugs but whoever changed the wires last didn't put lube on one of the boots. 5 came off ok, 1 came apart. Oh well... another 50 miles tomorrow.
 
What's the population in your town? Is it one of those places, where if a family has quintuplets, the population grows 45%? Just playin'. :p I saw this thing on Discovery Heath, where this town consisted of two or three families, and one of them had quints - seven babies at once!!! The town population almost doubled or something like that. I forget exactly where this was. I'll get back to this thread, when I see it again.

Since you live in the middle of nowhere, you must be heavy into eCommerce. I lost count of how many auto stores I have, within a 5 mile radius. I'm guessing, at least twenty. I only go to three of them, regularly - one of them I can walk to. Reason being - is that there are three Autozone locations, within my 5 mile radius. Yes, they blew away the competition, on Long Island, NY - BIGTIME.

PS I'm sorry to hear how NAPA screwed you over so badly. I have many of those stores in my area, too - I never plan on going to any of them.:rolleyes:
 
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Anyone see that show about Bigfork, Montana? The one about the two kids that killed the guy during a robbery? Ted and Jesse Ernst. Then their cousin killed his step Dad? Then two guys were killed over some drug deal or something? Before all this a couple was killed for something, don't remember what offhand.

Anyway, that's where I live!! Murder capital of Montana! All those happened within about 5 miles of my house.
 
Likely because he wanted them now.. not 3 or 4 days later.

Napa in general isn't a bad place to shop. The tend to service the Jobber more than the home mechanic. So the home mechanic benifits in that some of the less common items are often stocked by them. they often also have some form of machine shop so they can turn rotors, drums, and do some minor work. Some can do more major work.

Depending on the store they can be pretty competitive price wise, and compaired to the big box auto parts stores, they have stuff that others just don't have.

If you get bad service like that it would be pretty important to talk to the manager or the owner of that store. if the poor attitude of the counter help matches that of the owner, then you know what store to stay away from. But if the owner is decent, he'll likely do something about that poor counter person.

Napa was the only shop I could find a self tapping caliper bolt to fit my Durango. And Napa was the cheapest place of the 4 I contacted to get the seal for my SC snout. And all 4 of them had to order it direct from CR.
 
Well got everything back together and (surprise, surprise) it runs worse than it did before changing plugs and wires.

I'm sure I just didn't get a wire seated completely. Unfortunately it's far enough to the highway that the car is up to full temp by the time I get home so have to wait for it to cool down now.

Oh well, what's one more day when it's been 3 already.
 
If that Napa isn't in your town maybe you could metion you're from Bigfork and they might straighten up a little. lol

Kurt
 
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