Rock Auto Shipping to Denver

[Crash]

Cops that respond to your catalytic convertor theft? Things must be different over there in GJ.

 

[twentyfooteighty]

As usual, there are at least two sides to most stories. Admittedly, the new law was partially a response to lost tax revenues at state and local levels due to burgeoning online sales. The taxes that pay the cops who respond to your catalytic converter theft, the folks who keep your streets paved , make it go away when you flush, etc. But it was also a response to concerns of your local brick and mortar stores faced with unfair competition from online sellers able to offer lower prices partially due to their ability to skip the sales taxes. The local retailers wanted a level playing field. You know, your ma and pa tire store that used to mount your bigger tires on odd size wheels or your local gear supplier who sponsors or provides door prizes for your events and raffles, sponsors your kids' Little League team, ponies up for other local fund drives. Having trouble right now remembering the last time I saw a Rock Auto sponsorship at any event. And there's no shortage of postings lamenting the loss of local service providers who used to go their extra mile for us before being forced to close.
I'm not holier than anyone. FedEx and UPS stop regularly at my house. But I also try to buy locally as much as possible for the above reasons and wonder how much actual money is saved after driving across town or a county boundary or two just to avoid taxes. I also try to avoid confusing inconvenience with sacrifice.
End of rant....

If I buy from Rock Auto and donate the rest directly to charity, does that make me a better human being?

 

[DaveInDenver]

As usual, there are at least two sides to most stories. Admittedly, the new law was partially a response to lost tax revenues at state and local levels due to burgeoning online sales. The taxes that pay the cops who respond to your catalytic converter theft, the folks who keep your streets paved , make it go away when you flush, etc. But it was also a response to concerns of your local brick and mortar stores faced with unfair competition from online sellers able to offer lower prices partially due to their ability to skip the sales taxes. The local retailers wanted a level playing field. You know, your ma and pa tire store that used to mount your bigger tires on odd size wheels or your local gear supplier who sponsors or provides door prizes for your events and raffles, sponsors your kids' Little League team, ponies up for other local fund drives. Having trouble right now remembering the last time I saw a Rock Auto sponsorship at any event. And there's no shortage of postings lamenting the loss of local service providers who used to go their extra mile for us before being forced to close.
I'm not holier than anyone. FedEx and UPS stop regularly at my house. But I also try to buy locally as much as possible for the above reasons and wonder how much actual money is saved after driving across town or a county boundary or two just to avoid taxes. I also try to avoid confusing inconvenience with sacrifice.
End of rant....

Well, yeah. A couple of points I'd suppose.

First, just to be clear, Rock Auto won't ship to addresses in the city limits of GJ because the municipality is home rule and doesn't participate in the State of Colorado SUTS.

Sales & Use Tax System (SUTS) | Department of Revenue - Taxation

tax.colorado.gov

Basically the state passed the online sales tax law and then offered to collect those taxes for towns and counties. No doubt after they take their skim. Rock Auto will ship to addresses outside the city limit but still in Mesa County. But since GJ is one of a very few Coloado places in this unique situation it's not worth it for companies like Rock Auto (which is not a massive corporation) to deal with the accounting work for a few sales. They will ship to tax exempt addresses in GJ (like resellers or repair shops).

Which brings up the main point. I was originally turned on to Rock Auto by a friend who's a mechanic. He buys stuff though them.

Why? Because they are unique and can really only exist because of the Internet.

So, for example, I was shopping for a clutch for our car, a 2002 Jetta.

Our dealer out here is GJ VW and sure, they could get what I needed. But it's piece-wise and would total about $800 for a pressure plate, friction disk and release bearing. The two options are Luk and Sachs, the OEM suppliers in the case of VW.

That's hard to swallow so I shop around. What local places do we have? NAPA, O'Reilly, Autozone, Advance Auto. What else? They're chains but employ our neighbors and so I try. I do buy plenty of stuff at NAPA, the other places not as much other than oil and stuff like that.

Well I called them and only NAPA was an option. The others didn't list anything and weren't willing (or able, I dunno) to get anything other than the release bearing (which is listed in the National bearing catalog). NAPA did have their house brand and could get it brought in from the warehouse. That was about $500 (clutch and flywheel in this case) but he was willing to knock 20% off. My understanding is NAPA clutches are often reboxed Luk, so that was a viable option that would have been about a $100 premium.

I checked Amazon. They had Luk. I don't buy from Amazon unless there literally is no other choice. I 100% agree they are the devil, like Walmart/Sams/Costco. I'll pick just about anyone else even if it's more, at least up to a point. But their price was about $250 shipped for clutch kit and flywheel and having it in stock was a fail back choice.

So I checked Rock Auto. They showed 10 different clutch options and 4 different flywheels in stock for our old car. Their price for Luk was a little lower than Amazon but Rock charges actual shipping so the total was the same. Plus they had cheaper clutches, higher performance clutches.

Mainly I like Rock Auto because they offer OEM suppliers without a lot of hassle. They distribute Aisin, Denso, Koyo without the Toyota markup. They have Luk, Sachs, Bosch for our VW as very significant discount over the dealer. I'm willing to fudge a little but I'm simply not going to pay the dealer $300 for the same pressure plate that is $80 online. I'd pay $100, $120, something reasonable to cover overhead. I do support Western Slope Toyota, but the prices are slightly more competitive and they offer club discounts that help a lot.

But what local parts store can compare to that? Not even one in NYC or LA could. Which is the point I'm making. Sometimes local makes sense but one of the things the Internet did was allow a niche shop to reach a wide audience. Rock Auto is in my mind like Marlin or Slee. Pre-Internet we used to buy from mail order specialty shops like Northwest Offroad or Downey and it wasn't a big deal. As near as I can determine Rock Auto's niche is aggregating databases across lots of warehouses and giving them a front end.