As a partsman myself. I feel your pain.
I generally don't go into the counter to ask for anything. I look it up. Get a number. Call them, or better yet if their website lets you, I look it up to see where it is. Then I go and get it. That way I only have myself to blame if I look it up wrong. And I can avoid the whole "You got a vin number" garbage. Especially since my car is made from probably a couple different donor vehicles.
Prime example. Replaced my master cylinder couple weeks ago. I searched around. Found the one for my car. Looked it up on NAPA and Autovalue. NAPA could have it in a couple days. I reserved it online on friday. Got a call the next week when it was in. Went in and got it. When I wanted a banjo bolt for the front discs. I looked it up. Said they have stock. I walked in and told them the number. Got it.
Not that the guys here aren't pretty knowledgeable. I come from a pretty serious car city. We have an entire weekend dedicated just to cars. They shut down probably a KM of main road just to have a "controlled" car cruise. There was 950 cars registered for the cruise last year. And they turned away at least 250 cars after that. And most of the parts guys at the automotive stores around here are those same car guys. So they can be excellent. But of course there is always the "it's just a job" type that don't really care about what they do.
Prime example of not knowing what to do? I was changing my rear gears. Going to a 4.10 setup. I was calling around. Pricing it out. Called one of the Dodge dealerships in town.
"I need 4.10 gearset for an 8-3/4 rear end. 489 case."
"Do you have the VIN number of the car."
"Yes, but this rear end is out of a different vehicle. I don't have that VIN."
"Oh we can only look it up by VIN."
"So you can't find rear gears for a 8-3/4 489 case without the vin?"
"No."
"Alrighty then." click
Needless to say. I didn't buy my gears from them.
