We here at craigslistmiata.org do not condone complaining on the internet. However, after quite a bit of back and forth between the largest online retailer in the world, a couple of guys trying to make a buck as a drop shipper, and an aftermarket parts manufacturer about a puddle of coolant. It’s a shame that it came to leaving a negative review on Amazon, but it turns out that buying car parts online can be a giant PITA if anything isn’t perfect. Now, we are huge fans of the Mazda Motorsports parts pricing program (where new OE parts show up in a new box in a couple of days) but trying to explain to a computer that you can’t just take the defective car part out of your car without having a replacement part to replace it.
There is a problem with speed shops/installers and the internet. Back when you had to physically go somewhere to buy a part, the store owner hoped to pay wholesale and sell it at retail. Later when they expanded to doing installations, some of that margin eroded because they could make up for it by charging for the labor. The shop owner wasn’t making as much selling parts, but they could still sustain a business. Enter the internet and worst of all instantaneous internet price matching on your iPhone, the brick and mortar store can no longer compete and your poor mechanic ends up having to install the cheapest Chinese eBay part you could possibly buy. All to save a buck upfront, only to cost you time and headache in the future.
So the moral of the story is to stay away from big tech like eBay and Amazon and instead solicit total strangers to meet you in random places with goods you’ve only seen pictures of and enough cash in hand to purchase said items. And when all else fails, just engage in some internet whining, and a replacement radiator might finally show up at your door.