Rock Auto shipping costs higher?

It's been about 6 to 8 months since I purchased anything off Rock Auto, but didn't they have 3-5 day shipping? I went on there and everything I looked at was 2-3 day and was much higher in cost than I remember.

Maybe I'm becoming delusional.

I've actually never purchased anything from them (I think I'm the only one here that hasn't) because of shipping. They have a bunch of brands I've not heard of and when you factor in shipping, I can beat it here in town just about anywhere.

Their shipping is more than average for sure...

Watch for shipping from multiple warehouses. That will definitely make an order cost more. They add a little truck icon with a letter in it to let you know if the second/third/... items are being shipped from the same place or from another.

In reply to RossD:

Well I do know that. Either way I can get a new rotor for about $28 a piece. The last time I looked at a chain store, I couldn't find them for under $50 a piece. I'd pay the shipping for that price, if it's not too expensive, but it just seems to me that the shipping has just gotten higher in general.

I can also find Ceramic pads for under $20 by manufactures that make the parts for Napa and such, the cheapest I found around my area is about $40.

I had better luck with lower overall cost at partstrain.com. The parts were a bit more than rockauto, but shipping was less. That was a while back, so the current situation might be different.

I price things there all the time but also do not buy there because of shipping which brings the price up to same as I can get from a few miles away, today, with easy return.

On this same topic, I would love one thing in this world. I would like a website that aggregates auto parts stores.
I envision one website I could go to and it would give me pricing, availability, etc from Autozone, Advance, Rock, Napa, etc without having to open each website individually.

In reply to JohnRW1621:

Somebody needs to get on that STAT.

For many on-line companies, shipping is a profit center. I come across this all the time, where quoted shipping prices are 15-20% higher than we would normally pay for the same shipment. And they will never let us use our preferred shipper on our account. (FedEx)

I often price check Rock Auto versus local when I need something and can wait a few days, and 90% of the time it is still cheaper even with shipping, often by a significant amount. Tonight I'm ordering a balljoint and for the same Moog part it will be about $20 cheaper even with shipping.

SyntheticBlinkerFluid wrote: Well I do know that. Either way I can get a new rotor for about $28 a piece. The last time I looked at a chain store, I couldn't find them for under $50 a piece. I'd pay the shipping for that price, if it's not too expensive, but it just seems to me that the shipping has just gotten higher in general.

I was doing the brakes on my dads 1998 Grand Marquis right before I put a For Sale sign on it and found it was cheaper to buy cheapie import rotors from Rock Auto and pay shipping rather than buy them local from Autozone or the other chains.

cwh wrote: For many on-line companies, shipping is a profit center. I come across this all the time, where quoted shipping prices are 15-20% higher than we would normally pay for the same shipment. And they will never let us use our preferred shipper on our account. (FedEx)

Try bringing stuff across the border. I want a header for my Sentra. Buckets of them on ebay for $125 ish...plus $60 for shipping, plus another $60 to send it across the border, plus the ass rape from UPS to broker it across the border. I'm going to have it mailed to a friend in Phoenix, then drive down in January and pick it up. Probably cheaper...

Their shipping has gotten so bad I don't use them anymore unless they are giving something away. It's especially bad when an order is coming from 5 different warehouses and they hammer you for shipping on all of them.

The last time I tried to use them the shipping costs came to over $100. I canceled the order and got it somewhere else.

I don't know how much their shipping costs are really being inflated....

I ship packages/parts at least 5x a month, and the cost has definitely increased a substantial amount in the last year. RockAuto is still shipping things to me for cheaper than i can ship to them.

I had to order two new trunk lift strut things for a 2000 Impala because they were no longer lifting anything. The local (Ontario Canada) AutoZone or equivalent wanted $40 each, delivery in half a business day. The GM dealer wanted $80 each, and they would have to be ordered. RockAuto wanted about $12.50 each, so I got two struts plus shipping across the border for the cost of 1.5 struts locally. Plus a cool fridge magnet. Hard to beat.

EDITED to correct RA price

Even with the shipping you're usually saving a fair amount of money. Especially if you subsidize it by stockpiling consumables through them, $3 Denso oil filters and whatnot.

If you're after one hing, try punching the part number into amazon, especially if you have prime, you can get cheaper than RA+shipping sometimes.

You do need to shop carefully, but a good savings can be had. The trick I've found is to buy alot at once. If you just need 2 $5 parts, it's better to go local.

I have an Amazon Prime account so i try to get stuff off there when i can for the free 2 day shipping. I will check RockAuto first though just to see, but yeah the shipping has gone up for sure.

I'm needing to buy another round of parts for the dakota I'm working on. O'really was 94 bucks, rockauto going by cheapest price was 74 with the 5% discount code anybody can get, rockauto going on cheapest parts from the same warehouse was 69. You can't just throw the cheapest part in the cart and not get raped on shipping.

I've said it before, and I will say it again, if your buying a lot of auto parts, make friends with the local Indie auto parts store.

In my case its a locally owned NAPA. They want my business, and sell to me at wholesale price to get it. They also have excellent customer service.

Their wholesale price is usually very close to Rock's price after shipping, I almost always get stuff faster, and when there is a wrong part or defect, nothing needs to go in the mail.

I always check Amazon and Ebay first as well. Seems to net about a 5-10% discount over rockauto sometimes, but will also end up with multiple orders from multiple sellers and I usually don't want to deal with that if it"s more than teo parts.

Discount code whoring Advance works in a pinch, too.

But I still buy 75% of my replacement parts from Rock anyways. Saves me time and gas money.

they got me a new tailgate handle for my avalanche for $15.08 to my door. i love their wholesaler closeouts. that's the bulk of what i buy from them.

RossD wrote: Watch for shipping from multiple warehouses. That will definitely make an order cost more. They add a little truck icon with a letter in it to let you know if the second/third/... items are being shipped from the same place or from another.

You do have to watch for this. I have found that a few other on line auto parts stores end up being cheaper after you add in Rock Autos shipping costs. Northern Auto Parts is one. They don't carry as wide a line of parts or brands but if they have what you want it all comes from the same location saving on shipping costs.

JohnRW1621 wrote: On this same topic, I would love one thing in this world. I would like a website that aggregates auto parts stores. I envision one website I could go to and it would give me pricing, availability, etc from Autozone, Advance, Rock, Napa, etc without having to open each website individually.

They do. It's called Mitchel (or really any of the service-writer programs).

not to knock Eeuroparts . com but I priced out window rollers for my saab, about the size of a half doller, i live 2 hours away and the shipping is 9.95$ flat rate... silly