where do you buy your truck parts?

I shop at one of two local Kenworth dealers. I just tell them I am still leased to xyz trucking company and get a very nice discount that way. For shocks, I have been using Gabriel, the ones that are adjustable. I put them on the soft setting, very good ride with little to no body roll in curves. They are blue in color, and last 3-4 times as long as the junk road lever's that the oem's like to put on.

 

I don't have any more info on them. I think a guy that parks at my friends shop bought some from Ron's Repair in Worthington. Not sure where you are located from there, but that is a good place to get parts from as well. They will usually beat the pricing from the dealers without even asking. Their phone number is 507-343-4265

 

I buy all my oil and grease through Schaeffers and my parts moslty come through B&D Truck Parts here in Fostoria, OH. Tires I get through a business called Northwest Tire in Bowling Green, OH. I have learned to build a relationship with a small handful of places that leads to pretty decent discounts and a lot better service too. Also to keep these places honest I check a couple others occasionally to see if pricing and availablity is up to par.

 

I buy oil at auto zone they give a Military Discount and carry Mobil oil in my area . I pay roughly 11.75 a gallon on oil and around 20-21.00 on Luscus oil stabilizer

Parts I normally try NAPA ( locally ) I also get a military discount their and get parts about 1-2% cheaper regular price from my OEM dealer sometimes it's only pennies but it still is savings

I make a habit of asking if they offer a MIL discount

 

I second fleetpride (the one in Eau Claire, WI that used to be a Catco has a great labor rate in the low 80's) for driveline/suspension, hydraulics, and transmission, but I buy most of my parts over the road.

Having an older truck usually means either heading down to a KW dealer, and having them drag out the old dusty binders to do part lookups, or go to another dealer and have them call KW to do the exact same thing, being told they don't have the part, getting the part number, making some calls, and occasionally having to fudge a part together from different components or different engines/trucks.

My exhaust manifold/turbo system is built around 3.5" hardware for some bizarre reason, so I kept going from dealers, to auto parts shops, to custom exhaust shops, NAPA, o'reiley's, autozone, to hardware stores looking for everything, and I ended up getting it all at a larger KW dealer that had a large medium duty parts inventory out in Denver. Probably could have found it all in about 30 minutes if I had the convenience of online shopping.

 

Try ProMaxx Truck Parts...They have locations in St. Cloud, Down by LaCrosse, Glencoe, and one about an hour north of Eau Claire,WI. Seem to have good prices.

Duke

 

If you shop at NAPA, get the AITA discount card here.

It's free and will discount HD truck parts substantially, usually around 20%. However, no discount on lube products. Seriously, not even Lucas stuff like 5th wheel lube that would only be purchased for use on a HD truck. So I go to TruckPro or the like and save a few bucks for those things when it works out.

My main reason for using NAPA is that I live about 5 mi from their store in the SE dist center and they rarely are out of anything, even oddball parts. On the other hand, Freightliner routinely beats the crap out of them price-wise, even with the AITA discount. Definitely worthwhile to shop your options.