I need to purchase a new air door actuator for my 2001 Buick Regal. Most of the options at Autozone are over $100. I can find them on Amazon for as little as $20. Normally, I'd steer clear of the Amazon (most likely from China) electronics parts. But saving upwards of $100 on this one part is very tempting. Am I making a mistake getting this part from Amazon?
Rockauto.com
@oneimich
Thanks, good alternative. Nearly matches the Amazon savings, and I think I'd have more confidence with these over the Amazon parts.
@oneimich
At least RockAuto give you choices like cheap, daily driver, high quality. Amazon is take-it-or-leave-it.
@oneimich
Rockauto.com is great! Shop on their website if you want quality parts for cheap.
That’s the benefit of online shopping. Look up more to see which brand is better and buy it online. There is no ha in buying online for these parts.
I bought a door handle on Amazon for what I thought was a good deal. But it broke less than a year later so... was it really a good deal?
Here's what I ended up buying....
First, I wanted to try out Rockauto. I liked the site, their options, and their prices. I looked up the part by my make and model, chose a middle-of-the-road option and put in my order. I paid a little to get it via FedEx ground (since the USPS is imploding now) - but the extra charge wasn't much. The part came earlier than the shipping estimate, so I was happy. I installed it, but it wasn't working - not moving at all. So I sent it back using their pretty simple process (just print out a return label and drop it at any FedEx location). Got a replacement in a few more days. This time I wanted to bench test it to confirm it worked before installation. That's when I noticed that the pins on my new part didn't match up with the original. I looked up my order, and sure enough the replacement part numbers didn't match the original part number. It said it was valid for make and model, but it wasn't. If you search by the part number, you'll get the right one, but the make and model search brought me to a different one. So I had to return once again. I was going to order the correct part from them, but for some reason the shipping costs were a bit higher and brought it up to more than I wanted to pay.
I ended up ordering one from Amazon. I'm a prime member so the shipping was free. The Amazon part installed and is working fine.
I'm willing to try Rockauto again, but I'll be sure to check my part numbers. And I should always do a better comparison of the old and new parts before installing anyway - that one was on me.
Glad it worked out ordering anything online and aftermarket like that can be a crap shoot. By there catalogs it may be right but a lot of those parts are very generic and made to fit many different cars so some it fits perfectly and others not so much as you found out
If you buy from Rock Auto, they often have tiered categories depending on what you buy. For example, from least to greatest: economy, daily driver, premium. I would recommend never buying anything from the “economy” class. I bought economy break pads and rotors and I regretted it, they were junk. Best of luck
