Hi i have a 2002 dodge dakota quad cab 4x4 4.7, I recently found out i had a leak out of my p/s pump so i decided to buy a new reman pump from autozone which was a mistake. i installed the pump no problem but when i went to go bleed the system after 2 hours i finally gave up and had a mechanic look at it and i was told that the new pump was bad, my question is ive read about the autozone/advance pumps and i have seen alot of bad reviews on them. my question is where should i buy the pump ive seen alot around the internet about the mopar pump or i was thinking of napa?

 

I will move this to the 2nd Generation Dakota sub-forum.

 

As a professional mechanic for one of the largest chains in the country... (midas) I am very familiar with the different quality of different parts houses. Autozone easily has the buttom of the barrel crap. I try to go OEM as much as possible, XL parts is pretty good about stocking genuine MOPAR. Plus I get everything at wholesale which is awesome. I avoid autozone like the plague. They have the least amount of quality control. This is how we use part houses. Light bulbs or filters, we use oriellys, pumps, alternators, radiators, we use XL parts. Hard to find little odds and ends we use advanced... autozone... we just dont call... If you have an XL parts available use them for your pump. If not oriellys will have a decent pump for you. Remember... you get what you pay for. Napa is decent but they seem pricey...

 

No offense to Crateamps but I have had good luck with the parts I have bought from Auto Zone. Their Duralast Gold batteries are very high quality. They are the best batteries I have ever used that can stand up to the Florida heat and humidity. I helped a friend of mine with her Honda, she had a Duralast red top battery that was over 3 years old, she did not have a receipt and Auto Zone still gave her a pro-rated exhange credit on a new battery. I did have a problem once with an Auto Zone fan clutch, and the store manager gave me a full refund for it, in cash, even though the part was over 3 months old.

I put a Duralast water pump on my truck about a year ago, it is still working fine and I had no prroblems at all with it when I installed it. I can not say the same for the Napa water pump I had bought when I started that job. I posted and ranted about that ordeal here:

https://dodgeforum.com/forum/2nd-gen...i-for-diy.html

I put Duralast upper ball joints on my truck, they are made by TRW for Auto Zone, and they are doing fine and cost half as much as TRW branded ball joints. I agree it is hard to get good quality parts and it is hard to know what kind of quality parts are available with so many parts being made in China and other overseas factories now.

I have had good luck with the parts I bought at Advance too. I replaced my blower motor resistor last week with one from Advance, the new one looks exactly like the original Dodge part. To be honest about it I have noticed that it really does not matter where you buy parts now. A lot of the time the part is exactly the same no matter what store it comes from, it just has a different store label on the box. And more and more often that label also says "Made in China". Not to say that all Chinese-made parts are bad, but I try to buy American as often as possible.

Sometimes when I need parts I will check with the Dodge dealer just to see how much their price is. It is always crazy expensive, 2 or 3 times as much as a parts store. There have been a few parts I had no other choice but to use OEM and they cost a lot more than any parts store. If I worked in a shop or had a dealer discount or wholesale price I would use OEM parts more often. We do not have O'Reilley's or XL Parts here, just Napa, Advance and Autozone. There is a Carquest about 15 miles from here, they are a lot like Napa but are usually more expensive. www.rockauto.com usually has good prices on good name brand parts if you have time to wait for shipping, but sometimes the shipping can do away with any discount or savings compared to a local parts store or Dodge dealer.

Just my 2 cents on it.

Jimmy

 

I wasnt saying that every part from there was junk... Its just that when you install 50 parts a day on cars...and 90% of the ones that come back defective are from auto zone...that to me is a statistic... since 80% of our parts are ordered from Oriellys..