O’reilly Auto Parts

Employees are rude. I walked in, and wasn’t greeted or even asked if I needed help with anything. All three employees looked at me and I went about my way to try to find what I needed. As I was walking down the aisle a customer walked in and he was greeted and asked if he needed help! I left and I went to AutoZone.

I don t mean to impugn O’Reilly Auto Parts generally, but just one particularly bad employee specifically. I special-​ordered a brake hose for my father’s car from the 34^th Street and Quaker location, and my father picked it up the next day and delivered it to his mechanic. I went to visit our mechanic the next day, and said that the part was the wrong one. The correct part uses flare nut fittings on both ends, and the incorrect part sold to my Dad had a banjo fitting at one end. He’s a mechanic at a Honda dealer and he didn t see where the part would work anywhere on that Civic’s brake system. It was at this juncture that he pointed out that some little copper washers were missing from the box and that tell-​tale Scotchtape on the box might point to this part having been returned and re-​stocked priorly.
So my Dad, a kindly 79-​year-​old man, drives to O’Reilly on Monday to return the part, and the guy at O’Reilly s refuses to give him a refund because he too noticed that the copper washers that would have have gone on the banjo bolt were missing, and presumed that my Father was responsible for the absent parts. So Dad calls me and hands off his cell phone the this fellow so that I might speak to him. I stated that the box was fastened with Scotchtape when we bought it and introduced the possibility that the part was returned priorly by another customer and that perhaps the prior purchaser was responsible for the missing items.
So the guy then shifts the reason for denial of a refund to this. «Well, it’s been three days since your Dad bought the part, why did you wait so long to return the part?» And I opined that three days is a reasonable amount of time within which to return an unused part for a refund and asked whether there was a tighter timetable on the return policy for parts that are dispensed incorrectly versus parts that are sold that fit their intended application? I then asked to speak to the Manager, at which point he finally broke, griping, «I don’t want to mess with this anymore… «and grudgingly refunded my the money to my Father. Again, I’m sure O’Reilly Auto Parts is generally ok, but this one particular employee was bent on hassling an old man completely unnecessarily and unjustly over a non-​fitting 19-​dollar brake hose and a couple of missing copper washers. For shame!