I went to the Sno Drift rally this weekend in the northern lower peninsula of Michigan and in the process got a chance to visit several auto parts stores. What I found refreshing about going up there is that almost every small town had a an auto parts store that was an independently owned affair with none of the big corporate names to be found.
It seems, by a wide margin, that the biggest affiliation these stores have is with the Auto Value brand. Napa and CarQuest were visible but not anywhere near the same degree. Many of these stores are also catering to the off-road and powersports markets so many of these tiny stores had a very impressive array of lubricants available.
What I noticed about the lubricants was that the mix of brands were quite different to what you would see in an Autozone or Advance. The Parts Master house brand was in full force (bottled by Ashland) as well as Wolf's Head, Kendall, SuperS, and a surprisingly huge selection of Amsoil (I visited a store in Roscommon that almost every Amsoil product including some of the Euro stuff for VWs and such)
It seemed that big names like Quaker State and Pennzoil and Castrol were also-rans with nowhere near the same coverage. I noted that the Wolf's Head was considered to be a step up from the house brands but could still be had for under $3 a quart and the PartsMaster (same as Napa Proselect) filters were reasonably priced as well as the higher priced Wix filters. I am sure that most of the clientele who are buying from these stores are rocking various age American pickups and virtually all the cars that you see on the road up there are American by virtue of the import dealers in some cases being hours away. So, other than a few exceptions, something like the Wolf's Head or PartsMaster oil would be appropriate for like 98% of the vehicles on the road and stuff like Amsoil would take on the balance. I wonder if there is some kind of pricing advantage for these stores because I saw very little full synthetic oil from other brands other than some Mobil 1.
I don't know if there's any real new in this post, but I found it interesting to see how people live and shop when they are not in the shadows of the big city.
It seems, by a wide margin, that the biggest affiliation these stores have is with the Auto Value brand. Napa and CarQuest were visible but not anywhere near the same degree. Many of these stores are also catering to the off-road and powersports markets so many of these tiny stores had a very impressive array of lubricants available.
What I noticed about the lubricants was that the mix of brands were quite different to what you would see in an Autozone or Advance. The Parts Master house brand was in full force (bottled by Ashland) as well as Wolf's Head, Kendall, SuperS, and a surprisingly huge selection of Amsoil (I visited a store in Roscommon that almost every Amsoil product including some of the Euro stuff for VWs and such)
It seemed that big names like Quaker State and Pennzoil and Castrol were also-rans with nowhere near the same coverage. I noted that the Wolf's Head was considered to be a step up from the house brands but could still be had for under $3 a quart and the PartsMaster (same as Napa Proselect) filters were reasonably priced as well as the higher priced Wix filters. I am sure that most of the clientele who are buying from these stores are rocking various age American pickups and virtually all the cars that you see on the road up there are American by virtue of the import dealers in some cases being hours away. So, other than a few exceptions, something like the Wolf's Head or PartsMaster oil would be appropriate for like 98% of the vehicles on the road and stuff like Amsoil would take on the balance. I wonder if there is some kind of pricing advantage for these stores because I saw very little full synthetic oil from other brands other than some Mobil 1.
I don't know if there's any real new in this post, but I found it interesting to see how people live and shop when they are not in the shadows of the big city.
