Kragen Auto Parts

My alternator (kragen brand) has lifetime warranty. They looked up receipt and said warranty expired back in 1999. How does lifetime warranty expire, especially if I purchased the alternator in 2006 when I first got my license? Went to a different kragen store and had my warranty fulfilled, guy at the store said it wasn’t expired, the expiration date said 99÷99÷9999. How the hell is that 1999?

First thing, the store is located in an area that looks abandoned. They should just bulldozer the area and build condominiums.
The staff were not helpful. The store is a smaller version of a real auto supply shop.
Skip Kragen, drive the distance and go to Pep Boys. Anywhere but here.

I wish I could give this place zero stars. The filipino lady that works at Kragen has the worst customer service skills. They sold me the wrong oil filter 3 weeks ago. I finally got around to changing the oil in the Lexus. The car is raised and the oil is drained, but the filter does not fit. luckily I had a second filter to use. I purchased their package deal consisting of 5 quarts of Royal purple synthetic oil and a free K&N oil filter. They were out of K&N filters at the time of the sale so they substituted Mobil 1 oil filters in place. The Mobil 1 filters cost a little more so the substitution worked out in my favor. I changed the oil and headed over to Kragen to receycle the old oil and also to exchange the oil filter for the correct one. The lady said that I needed to furnish the receipt. I did not keep the receipt and I explained to her that I was not trying to return the item, but just merely wanted to exchange it for the correct part. I told her that the manager actaully looked up the part number and gave me the oil filter so it was their error. She said no receipt no exchange. She also said that they never had a Royal Purple sale with a free Mobil 1 filter. I tried to explain to her that they were out of K&N filters so the manager substituted the Mobil 1 filter in its place. She told me to wait. I was in the store waiting for a half an hour and I was also purchasing 2 more quarts of Royal Purple Oil. I had guests coming over for dinner and I had to get back home to cook. I got back in line to pay. When i finally got to the front she said she was not ready to do the exchange yet and was waiting for her manager to call her back. I told her that I had aready wasted 50 minutes of my time in the store over a $ 10 oil filter. This was due to their mistake. If I did not have an extra filter at home I would not be able to drive the car. I ended up leaving the filter there as it is useless to me. I told her to keep the $ 10 part. She made me feel like I was some kind of crook trying to scam her out of a $ 10 oil filter. Try to avoid this place at all costs.

I was in the area, saw this Kragen and decided to stop by to purchase some wiper blades for my car before the rain starts at the end of the week. I walked straight to the wiper blades and didn’t see a booklet where I can look up my car and see which blades I need. So I tried looking it up on my phone but it was too slow and irritating me. I went to the counter to finally ask for some help.
OMG. WHAT A MISTAKE.
The lady behind the counter was SO rude. I guess she was in the middle of ringing someone up and decided to start helping/​ringing up another customer– ok, that’s fine. She said to him that she was helping someone and she’ll ring him over at the other register. I suppose he didn’t hear her so she snap at him and repeated herself. Um… there’s no NEED to snap at a CUSTOMER. I had also already told her that I was looking for wiper blades and told me to wait.
I gave her 30 more seconds before I decided I will not purchase shit from this place and just walked out. She needs to get her snooty attitude checked. People, go to a different location.

I’m giving this a mixed review as with the exception of one time, the staff has been extremely helpful and friendly. The one negative experience was enough to drag the rating down to 2-​stars.
I had purchased a case of synthetic oil for my car and paid cash. I did not need to open the case for approx. 2 months after I had purchased it (I still had a couple of quarts from the previous case) and when I did open the case, I found that each and every quart had been opened, emptied and refilled with dirty oil. The case had been carefully opened and re-​sealed, so it looked like any other case of new oil.
I took the case back to the store, explained my situation to the Manager hoping they would take the dirty oil and dispose of it. I was also purchasing a replacement case, as I still needed oil for my car. As I did not have my receipt, I had no expectations of getting a refund — I just wanted the dirty oil disposed.
The manager proceeded to accuse me of trying to pull a fast one and return the oil after I had used it. What?! We exchanged a few words and I left with the dirty oil after they refused to take it back — even for disposal.
I contacted customer service of Kragen’s parent company, CSK, for two reasons: complain about the highly unprofessional service of the store manager and to alert them of this bait-​and-​switch issue — surely affecting other customers.
The regional manager and I played phone tag a couple of times and then they just never returned my calls or emails. I was out $ 50 for the case and Kragen/​CSK has never tried to resolve the problem.
My advice: get your automotive parts from somewhere other than Kragen and ALWAYS have them open the case of oil in the store to check each and every quart.