Worldwide Auto Parts

It’s been a few years since I’ve been in but at the time when I was doing a low budget restoration of a ’65 Cadillac Hearse AND keeping a 15 year old Corvette running as my daily driver, I was going to every parts store around. In time it got so Worldwide, and in particular the Morena location, wass the only place I’d call.
their guys really knew their parts lines, the old fashioned «parts guy who was/​could be a mechanic» knowledge was always apparant. Nothing worse than calling or visiting a store with «clerks» who see the part you need as a number on a box on a shelf, and have no clue about what it does, or where it goes.
They always had a wide range of price levels for reach part, and could give you trusted advice on whether the cheapest option was near OEM and the best bang for the buck, or if you should not take the low budget route if the part would just plain blow up quickly.
Here’s the kind of thing that made me completely loyal and made them my number one choice– Corvette’s with TPI have an emissions return exhaust tube that routes over the engine by the distributer, gets hella hot so has a fiberglass and foil heat shield on it– that deteriorates over time. Chevy’s solution is to replace the heat shield, a tube like arrangement that is $ 120. Worse you must remove that pipe and over the years they nearly weld themselves into place and an amateur doing it the first time is sure to destroy an expensive alloy pipe.
I asked the worldwide parts guy if he could get that shield for less than $ 120 and he smiles and says «how about $ 10?» and disappears into the back and returrns with a bulk roll of essentially the same shielding material, and a roll of stainless wire. For $ 10 he cuts off a piece big enough to make it twice over, plenty of wire, and I’m out the door. 20 minutes under the hood, taking my sweet time even, I’m done.
All the «clerk» auto parts stores didn’t even show a reference number, if they even saw the part on their display– and of course never thought out of the box like they were doing the repair themselves and thought to sell me bulk shielding.
I’d give it five stars but in all honesty my experiences, tho many, were about 10 years ago. (driving cars that get you from A to B, not fast or pretty now– they don’t break often) So it’s possible the crew now is different so for review seekers it’s a disclaimer that my experiences I glowingly report, were partially on Worldwide’s selection and inventory, which should be chainwide, but more on the individuals at that location, may or may not still exist today.
I would still bet they’ll beat the“clerk” auto parts stores today.