While it seems like just yesterday, I have been working here for 15 years now. The auto parts industry has changed light years in that time. In fact most industries have, but let me speak of the one I know. When I began here at Johnson Industries (Parent Company to Rightnowautoparts) most of the parts industry was still using paper catalogs to look up parts. What that took was an expert that knew where each manufacturers catalog was in the rack, and then where that company indexed the particular part needed. It seemed almost cruel the way every company called similar parts by different names, cataloged them in different parts of the book, used different columnar layouts and even included unique quirks such as Air Conditioning O-rings needed to be looked up in the Gasket catalog, etc..
Computers have changed most of these things. Not only have manufacturers needed to move their data to electronic catalogs, but they have learned it is in their best interest to synchronize their part categories and names for ease of look up. We are moving towards a standardized format that will make it much easier to look up auto parts.
Unfortunately we are not at our final destination yet. Because of the aforementioned "quirks" many times it can be very tricky to look up these parts. For example, did you know that many manufacturers of window lift motors have them designed so that the left front motor will also work on the right rear because of a mirror image setup? So what happens if you say you want a window lift motor for the left side on your car? You also need to enter front or back, but may not be asked, and you will get the wrong part unless you "know" of the issue. To compound this issue there are also mistakes made inputting the application data and an incorrect listing may persist until the next monthly update. If everyone was updating their own data it would be repaired quicker, but when compiling the auto parts info from many manufacturers it doesn't make sense to update every time one makes a change.
So where does that leave you, the online auto parts purchaser? The new, powerful, auto parts catalogs are great. They are easy to use, accurate for the most part, and empower the public to walk through a do-it-yourself project of auto repair while saving big money on the auto parts side. There are however those situations where some little known piece of data may cause an error and the wrong car part gets sent. In that case, please work with us by calling 1-888-921-9154 and let one of our parts experts walk through the data with you to get the right part. Most of them have been doing just that for many, many years, and will be more than happy to help you out (for free). Mistakes may happen but we will do everything we can to make it right for you.
The Right Part at the Right time from Rightnowautoparts.com
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