okay so today goes like this,
i got out of bed at about 10:30 and thought to myself hmm, what shall i do today, went down to the garage and stared at my car for about 10 minutes and thought oh yeah i have some lowering blocks that i can put in
so off i go hard at work, jacked up the car, slid under, put some lanonline spray on all the nuts and u bolts and went to get my socket set.
i then went back to the car and started undoing the nuts, they arent easy to get undone haha, anyway i thought to myself i should take the shock off in case its putting to much pressure on the diff and making it harder to undo, so off comes the shock, and back onto the u bolts again, finaly i got one off, then mum gets home with some food, so i chow that down and call up the local bolt shop, this is where it gets interesting or should i say the bit that makes me cranky, i got onto the guy and he said we are open until 12, time being 11:40, so i was like sweet man ill be down in 10 or 15. so i finish up my food get my wallet and the stock ubolt and jump in the car with mum, on the way there im thinking how sick my ute will look 3 inches lower really quite happy,
about 300 meters from the store you can see the big roller door and it looked to be shut, we pulled up and it was, i got there at 11:52 and there was not a car or person in sight, fair enough its a saturday but still, he new i was coming down and he was gone before 12 so that makes me pretty angry.
well with no luck there i wasnt about to give up.
being in an industrial estate, i thought there would have to be atleast one more bolt shop, surely enough, there was, went in and asked if they had some u bolts he pointed across the room and said yeah got those ones, they were about 4cms long, and he goes "bit short i think" then he said, you should check autobarn

so i jump back in the car and off to autobarn, which is on the other side of the road, tookabout 5 minutes to get there, go in and the kid behind the counter said yeah sure we have some out back ill go get them from out the back, comes back about 5 minutes later, nah mate we must have sold out,

so back in the car and down to the trailer shop about 5 shops down, same thing nah mate only got shorter ones, then to repco about 3 stores down, same thing nah mate we dont have any,but whilst sitting in the car out the front mum looked across the road and saw a Global Auto Spares, so when i jumped in mum said what about over there, so over we go and they are shut :( by this time i felt pretty angry, with one more auto shop up our sleeves we headed over there, being supercheap i thought they must have them, with a slogan like "every thing auto and much much more", i thought i could be onto a winner, but no they had none, and with my last little glimpse of hope i headed over to the dreaded bunnings at harbour town. i went in and found the bolt section and asked the dude there, he said yeah sure we have some u bolts and took me to them, they where about 3cms long and about 5mm wide, then i showed him the one i had and he said oh nah mate thats automotive we dont have anything like that.

so i got back in the car and headed home and here i am now, very anrgy cus now i have to finish it off on monday afternoon and also, these autoshops dont stop bragging about how much stuff they have why dont they say, "we have #OOPS# all but some waste your time here" if you didnt guess im pretty angry

well that sucks then man but i know what ya mean, they're always sold out of the stuff that you actually need. i went to repco once and they'd sold out of fuel hose, i mean that's one of the essentials that you expect them to have.
man i do love saturdays though :)

hahah yeah
i thought i might aswell go get it all ready to just bolt up on monday
sure enough
the blocks dont line up properly
the point at one end will go in but the hole in the bottom for where the leaf bolt goes is about 1cm or 2 forward of it grr

That sounds about like my saturdays, trying to get stuff done on the cars, go to the parts house and all you get is "You Want a What for a What Year Datsun, Good Luck Buddy"

haha yeah, its really iritating

know how ya feel......the guy at Sprints said he would ring me when my lowering blocks came in, only a week he said...................that was 7 weeks ago.
I dont know how most of them stay trading, they never have anything and they take ages to get stuff.

Three things to consider are:

- Auto parts stores don't want over heads so they try to stock as little as possible. This is entirely stupid for referencing and stuff
- Automotive brands (company that supplies\ owns a heap of stuff now) are stupid
- Parts people need a smack in the face and need to be put on less hours but include some weekend in that so they are happier and we are happier

sooooo true, but really how hard is it to stay open till when you say you will

Ahhhhhhh! the joys of working on cars!!!!

it happens to the best of us!

The phrase 'P.O.E.T.S DAY' comes to mind, Piss Off Early Todays Saturday!!

Leaving it untill 8 minutes before the deadline when the store shuts is cutting it a bit thin. The bloke who works there probably wants to go home at the end of his shift just the same as the rest of us & just because you said that you would be there doesn't mean diddley squat.
Saying it is one thing, doing it is another & a very substantial percentage of callers that say that they will call in, ........... don't.

If your dealings at the store took, say, 20 minutes, would it be OK for him to ask you to leave at the 8 minute mark [12 noon] since he would be 'off the clock' at that point, or is he expected to work on for free, then go through the packing-up & closing-up shop procedure.

If you want to do this stuff on a Saturday morning, then starting at 7:30am is a much better idea as it gives you a much better time buffer.

Expecting general parts outlets to stock long U bolts for use with lowering blocks is really a bit of an ask. They are not really a big turnover item any more in these days of front drive & independant rear suspension cars, & stocking slow or non moving parts is simply not smart from a business perspective.
Dismantling a car before you have all of the required [specialised] parts to complete the job late on a Saturday morning is not too smart either, as you have now discovered.

Think twice, act once.