Cars, both new and used, are the sum of their parts. A car is only as good as its weakest part— which, if you think about it, is pretty surprising considering how much a car costs these days. A defective $3 spark plug, for example, can mean the difference between a $50,000 Porsche that starts and one that doesn't.

Simply put, car parts wear out from time to time, and you need to replace them. Some parts affect the operation of your car, while others can directly affect your safety in a motor vehicle. That's why you always want to keep your car in tip-top condition by replacing parts as they wear out — or even better, before they break on you.

To accomplish this goal, you need to follow the car manufacturer's recommended service schedules. A brand-new car carries a warranty that covers standard parts replacement at no cost to you during the lifetime of the warranty (which generally lasts for a year or so, unless you purchase additional coverage — an extended warranty — from your dealer when you buy the car). If you're going with a used car, you need to look through the cares service records before you buy it. Poor service records may indicate poor service habits and the possible use of inferior replacement parts that may break on you later. Remember that a big gulf lies between a cheap car part and an inferior car part.

In this chapter, we show you where to go online to buy what parts you need and to save money at the same time. (Your goal, of course, is always to get the best car part at the best price, and we show you exactly how to get the right part at the right price by using the vast resources of the Internet.)

We also take you on a tour of the various car-parts sellers that you can find on the Internet. We visit dealers, wholesalers, parts makers, tire manufacturers, and muffler shops — even junkyard dogs. By the time you finish this chapter, you need never to feel at the mercy of the neighborhood mechanic again.

Gettingg Authorized Parts from Authorized Online Sources

A modern car is an incredibly complex piece of machinery. Beneath the beguiling styling lines that attract your eye lies an imaginative mixture of mechanical and technological components. Each component is chosen by highly experienced engineers to work well with all others in a way that provides you, the car owner, with pride of ownership and a worry-free driving experience.

Manufacturers recommend that you use only authorized replacement parts that authorized service providers install. They make this recommendation because they know that the overall value of your car relies on its capability to continue to provide you with an excellent motoring service.

The Ford Motor Company (www.ford.com), for example, maintains a great section on its Web site for owners. Keep in mind that Ford represents several car brands, as do many other manufacturers. (Ford isn't just Ford, Lincoln, and Mercury. It's also Volvo, Mazda, Jaguar, and Aston Martin.) To get to the information about parts, click the Service link under the For Owners heading on the Ford home page. For information about parts for other Ford-owned makes, click the make —Volvo, Mazda, and so on — at the Ford home page; then navigate your way to the parts information. (Each make's Web site works differently.)

Not only does Ford provide great maintenance and safety tips online, but you also can find information about Ford parts, Motorcraft parts, Ford-brand accessories, Ford crash parts, parts brand protection, and warranty coverage.

We particularly like the Ford Web site because it features plenty of cross-references and is easy to use. If you're a Ford (or Lincoln, Mercury, Volvo, Mazda, Jaguar, or Aston Martin) owner, all you need to do is to choose a parts section that suits your need — and use it to get the information you need about parts for your vehicle and the warranties that cover them.

Of course, most of the other big car makers, whether Chrysler, General Motors, or even Ferrari, provide a similar service at their Web sites. Accessing such a site is much like directly accessing an entire library of car parts and advice, although all the manufacturers refer you to their dealer networks if you decide to buy the required part.

Mopar (at www.mopar.com) is Chrysler's parts site. Navigating the site is incredibly simple. Its main categories offer maintenance products, collision-repair replacement parts, accessories, performance parts, and even sports-wear. On the other hand, the site is short on specific parts info, although it does link up with Chrysler's vast dealer network.

General Motors parts sell under the ACDelco label. The ACDelco Web site (at www.acdelco.com) may be the best of the lot as far as the Big 3 manufacturers' sites go. The selection online is comprehensive. You can, for example, access the site's air-filter catalog, spark plug catalog, and similar listings for oil filters, batteries, and more. We like the way ACDelco enables you to search for the nearest parts retailer near you, whether it's an actual dealer or an independent storefront. It also enables you to sign up for the Driver's Log ACDelco's easy-to-use online reminder service that helps you plan your auto-motive maintenance needs.

The site offers much more, too. You can, for example, buy owner's manuals for all GM cars (as well as for Hondas, Hyundais, Isuzus, Suzukis, Kias, and Subarus) right off this Web site. You can also visit the ACDelco FunZone, which offers various puzzles, quizzes, and the ACDelco "Examinator," an online feature that gives you a close-up look at all the parts that the site describes.

ACDelco also provides a blurb about counterfeit parts — advice well worth heeding because counterfeit parts are usually of inferior quality and can compromise your safety.

Purchasing Parts Online from your Dealer

While researching this chapter, we visited the Ferrari Web site (at www.ferrari.com) and noticed that it was advertising specials on what it calls New Old Stock (or NOS) parts "for vintage Ferraris." NOS parts are available through its authorized North American Ferrari dealer network.

Engine lids, seat linings, window rubber strips, tachometers, and even a black convertible top were touted during our visit, with the express request that we contact our local Ferrari dealer to fill our needs.

But whether you own a Ferrari or Ford, extensive new-car dealer networks ensure a usually adequate supply of auto parts whenever you need them. Your dealer clearly is more than happy to service your car-part needs, and all manufacturers can help you locate a dealer near you through their Web sites.

Buying Parts Online from Automotive Parts Distributors

With millions of cars on the roads, the market for replacement car parts is, of course, massive. Entire industries now exist to fulfill the needs of car owners and the mechanics who service their vehicles. Among the more frequent parts that require replacement are mufflers and tires. Nowadays, you can buy these most basic of car parts from a variety of sources, including many that offer online services.

For starters, take a look at The World of Midas Web site (at www.midas.com). Midas is known to many for its mufflers, but the company offers tons of other replacement car parts, including brakes, suspension, air conditioning, and batteries, and a host of services such as wheel alignment, troubleshooting, and more.

The Midas Web site details all its products and services and then points you to its network of neighborhood Midas shops. The Web site also promises to list any special promotions that are currently underway at its shops, too.

Speedy Muffler (at www.speedy.com) is a big Canadian outfit that operates in the United States as CarX Muffler (at www.carx.com). Both the Canadian and the U.S. versions boast great Web sites offering complete listings of replacement services and available discount offers. Speedy Muffler, for example, was touting its Cyber-Coupon during my visit, which enables customers who use it to save 15 percent on certain parts.

The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company (at www.goodyear.com) maintains an exhaustive Web site. Goodyear claims to produce approximately 230 million tires per year in more than 90 plants in the United States and 26 other countries. In other words, Goodyear sells a myriad of replacement tires for thou-sands of cars, trucks, farm machinery, ATVs, and airplanes around the world.

For cars, the Goodyear Web site offers an online catalog, a handy retailer locator, and a listing of current promotions available in your area. It also recommends "the tire best suited for your vehicle" on a page of the site known as the Tire Selector. Simply select your vehicle's year, make, and model (for example, 1993 Mazda MX-6 IS) from the drop-down list boxes, and the selector recommends the right tire for your car. (In this example, it recommends the P205/55R15 87V as the standard tire size, with a speed rating of 149 mph.) This neat service also enables you to factor in desired handling requirements (such as snow, wet, quiet, long tread life, and so on) and optional tire sizes.

Goodyear's Tire School is a neat addition to its Web site. Check it out to locate tire care and maintenance FAQs, information about common tire-wear problems, and even details about how to make a tire and notes about what ingredients you need to do so.

Michelin (at www.michelin.com) makes and sells tires under its own brand name and under the B.F. Goodrich label, which it bought from B.F. Goodrich back in 1986. This Web site offers visitors a number of online features similar to those on Goodyear's site, including a tire selector. In fact, Michelin's site features three tire selectors — one for cars, one for motorcycles, and another one for trucks. Michelin's online catalog not only covers cars, but also bicycles, earthmovers, and more. I like Michelin's Essential Tire Guide because it contains lessons covering buying tips, safety guidelines, tire terminology, and even tire "anatomy."

Most of the other major tire makers, including Bridgestone (at www.bridgestone.com), Firestone (at www.firestone.com), Uniroyal (at www.uniroyal.com), and Pirelli (at www.pirelli.com), maintain similar, if less extensive, Web sites, and all are worth visiting if you're in the market for new tires. All these sites provide you with valuable information, direct links to their dealer networks, and timely deals to entice you to buy their products. Uniroyal, for example, was recently offering a $5-per-tire rebate to visitors to its Web site.

Mining Auto-Parts Department Stores Online

Inevitably, the time comes when you want to buy a car part or accessory. With hundreds of car makes and models in production, the wide variety of available parts and accessories, big and small, is as eclectic as the personalities of the people who own and drive the cars. You can find something for just about everyone, from the do-it-at-home amateur mechanic to the Sunday driver looking for a pair of fuzzy dice to hang over the rear-view mirror.

In fact, the selection of available accessories for your car is so huge that it requires a car department store to offer them all. That's what outfits such as NAPA and Canadian Tire are all about: a wide variety of choices at great prices.

Canadian Tire (at www.canadiantire.ca) is the big auto martin Canada. This company's Web site also acts more as a corporate brochure than as an online parts bazaar, but it invites visitors to sign up for its free E-Flyer, an e-mail bulletin advisory describing the deals of the week at participating stores in your area.
Pep Boys (at www.pepboys.com) is a well known auto parts chain with more than 660 stores across the United States. We'd like to see the company pep up its Web site into a first-class online parts catalog, however, instead of serving merely as a plug for its print catalog and network of stores. Right now, the site showcases only a dozen or so products, ranging from brake pads and air filters to mirror glaze and antifreeze.
CarParts.com (at www.carparts.com) boasts a monster online compilation listing more than 1.5 million parts. This site is as close to car-parts heaven as you're likely to find on the Internet.

We like CarParts.com for many reasons. Obviously, the selection is incredible; so, too, are its prices and promise of fast home delivery. This site offers the entire realm of replacement parts, along with OEM (original equipment manufacturer) parts, and even recycled parts. A few neat features here include the capability to apply any discount coupons that you may possess against your purchase, the availability of live online parts specialists, and even a car-parts auction area, where you're likely to find bids for hard-to-find auto manuals and muscle cars. It's a terrific site for sure.

Hot Rods USA (at www.hotrodsusa.com) maintains another great-looking site, albeit one with a more specialized focus. This site offers more than 15,000 parts in its database, all of them online for you to sift through. (Or should we say "shift" through? Hey, in the car-parts business, shift happens!) Hot Rods USA also warehouses new and used parts for golf carts, too, if you do much of your driving on the greens.

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If you like to race cars or you're simply looking to make your street rod look and feel a little bit sportier, look no farther than RaceSearch.com (at http://race-car-parts.com), billed as "The Ultimate Speed Shop Online." It's a tremendous resource for high-performance car parts, offering listings for more than 450 brands. The massive catalog includes everything from additives and lap belts to shifters and steering wheels, and you can browse through it or search it by part number. This site's definitely the one to book-mark if you're into the thrill of racing.

Buying Used or Classic Parts Online

Some car parts are harder to find than others, especially for classic cars. Cars and Parts Magazine (at www.carsandparts.com) has been in print since 1957. It's one of many publications that posts classified ads online, which gives greater exposure to hard-to-find parts. In the Cars and Parts online classifieds, we came across such as a listing for Hudson car parts (circa 1935-57). Ditto for gas tanks for 1995 Ford Thunderbirds and a wide variety of other parts.

Another place to look for parts is at Hemmings (at www.hemmings.com). Hemmings is an institution in print; online, it lives up to its billing as the world's largest collector-vehicle Web site. This place offers a terrific search engine that enables you to search quickly through a massive listing of parts for hundreds of car makes and models. We tried a casual search for Datsun car emblems and shock absorbers, and the search returned 11 listings in about a second. Next, we tried a search for Buick antennas and wiper blades, and that search retrieved more than 100 listings in about the same amount of time. Hemmings also hosts an ongoing online auction of car parts (for such items as an original 1966 Chevrolet Corvette hood, a 6-foot fiberglass truck cap for a 1998-2000 Ford Ranger, and so on).

AutoAccessory.com (at www.autoaccessory.com) calls itself a superstore in its chosen field. You can browse its Web site's big online catalog by make and model, not only for cars and trucks, but also for Jeeps and SUVs. You can browse and buy car covers, deerskin driving gloves, mobile entertainment electronics, road-trip gear, and even custom floor mats. You can also buy gift certificates at the site to give to others.

For the heck of it, we typed www.usedcarparts.com into a Web browser, and it accessed a cool site hosted by the giant Internet portal About.com. If you access the site, click the Accessories link or the OEM Parts link, and specify what kind of vehicle you have. You access a list of literally dozens of car-parts peddlers, including AAA Rims (selling refurbished alloy rims), Nippon-Motors (hawking used — and warranted — Japanese engines and transmissions), Spoilers4Less (offering all kinds of spoilers), and Warehouse Auto Parts (which specializes in rebuilt replacement parts).

We also recommend a visit to United Recyclers Group (at www.u-r-g.com), which represents hundreds of automotive parts recyclers in the United States and Canada.

A Canadian site, Global4AutoParts.com (at www.global4autoparts.com) promises good prices because of the currently discounted value of the Canadian dollar. It offers a very good parts catalog and a straightforward search engine.

Car-Part.com (at http://Car-Part.com) maybe worth a look-see, too. It claims to archive 5 million "unique auto parts" that you can mine by dealer or car make and model. This site hosts a link to hundreds of independent parts sellers in Canada and the United States. Car-Part.com can put you in contact with dozens of "auto recyclers," too.

And make sure that you check out Franklin Auto Parts (at www.franklinautoparts.com), a family-owned operation in business since 1933. Granted, the site isn't the spiffiest, but part of Franklin's longevity must derive from its capability to move with the times — in this case, with an online endeavor that marries technology with a human aspect that's not worth dismissing. At Franklin's site, you use a form to describe what part you need, and its staff members go about locating, pricing, and shipping it to you.

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If all else fails, a trip to the junkyard may prove the only way to find that part your car desperately needs. One dog that barks loudly is Action Auto Wreckers (at www.actionsalvage.com), an online parts catalog covering fenders, headlights, and sheet-metal parts for just about every car make imaginable. We clicked a link Dodge Daytona and retrieved a list of more than two dozen parts. This site also features a huge list of used engines for sale, and all customers to the site receive a 5 percent discount on purchases that they initiate online.

REMEMBER
The beauty about all the choices that we highlight in this chapter is that, on the Internet, you're not stuck dealing with a single source for your replacement car parts. But remember that a car is a complex piece of machinery, and its expert designers invest a lot of time and money into making sure that each part they incorporate into a car is perfect for that particular vehicle. So if you do need to buy replacement parts, whether new, used, or refurbished, always make sure that those parts are meant to go with your car. Your car's going to be glad that you do — and so are you.