I priced belts today and advanced, auto zone, and carquest were all around$35 and I went to NAPA and theres was 57??? Carquest was Gates brand and advaced and autozone were Daycos. Is NAPA worth the extra 20??? I wouldnt think so

 

NAPA is a re boxing outfit, I don't think that they make any parts. Also, they have about 4 different prices that they can quote you, so it really pays to get to know one. It should say on the napa belt who made it. I buy all of my oil, belts, wipers and other similar type parts at autozone or pep boys. Anything else I buy online...Mark

 

IDK, I got to my local Napa since the fellows sometimes know a little bit about what's going on. All the other parts stores in town are high school kids that have no clue. I'm not saying that 2 other Napa's I've been too ALSO didn't have all clueless highschool kids behind the counter either. I'm just lucky with my local one.

However, they are usually ALWAYS higher priced. But they usually have more in stock at least in my town compared to the other parts stores as far as heavier duty applications go.

Anyway... they belts are probably NOT much different. Like said, Napa repacks alot of their parts from other manufacturers

 

i would (and did) spend the money on this belt

http://www.napaonline.com/Search/Det...0HD_0187598790

IDK if the link works the same but the part number is NBH 25080830HD and its the "heavy duty" one that they run on things like school busses and they really are worth the extra money IMO.

 

that would make sense if thats the belt they were talking about

 

The chinese need more of our hard earned $$, would be my guess

 

that why i was shopping a round im preety sure the dayco and gates are made in the USA, but i dont know for sure??????Can any one vouch for a made in USA belt?

 

If the belt says GATES, then I will vouch for it, regardless of where it was bought.


So far as the NAPA stores compared to the other chain-gang concerns, NAPA, along with Carquest, Parts-Pro, Parts-Line, and some others, are sort of like co-ops; in that, the actual building and business is locally owned; they just have a contract to handle NAPA or whatever parts.

Such agreements usually include connections to an overnight service where some guy that has keys to the storage bins of all the stores in his district will drive a big delivery-truck all night, picking up stuff from one store and delivering stuff to others, such that the parts needed are in the store at opening time the next morning; not even the Pony-Express can beat that.

Being locally owned, and also much older companies, these types of store will usually have older, more experienced, people behind the counter.


On the other hand, such stores as Autozone, Pepboys, Advance, and the like, are usually owned by the corporation and are not staffed with lifetime employees.