Pep Boys in the Pacific Northwest

[Super S]

Around the late 90s, Pep Boys opened several locations in Vancouver, WA and Portland, OR. There were two in Vancouver, and one in Milwaukie, OR that I know of, and I believe there were a few more around Portland. These locations were not open very long, 1-1 1/12 years at the most, when one day they were all closed with virtually no warning. A friend of mine knew somebody who worked at one, and apparently the employees had very little notice, they came to work one day and were basically told, "We're closed. You are all fired" Apparently Pep Boys was in financial trouble.

Which is why I was surprised that, last month, when I was in Everett, WA, I drove by an open Pep Boys location. I am just curious if there are others up around the Seattle area, and if this was a market they were already in at the time the Portland area stores shut down, or if they have entered the Seattle market since then. To the best of my knowledge, they have not returned to the Portland market. I was under the impression that they left the Northwest altogether, but this proved me wrong.

[Brian Lutz]

I know that Pep Boys store in Everett (near the Everett Mall I believe) has been there for some time. The store locator on the website shows 9 total stores in Washington, all in the Puget Sound area, but none in any of the surrounding states (the locator has a nice little feature that shows the store counts in each state they're in as you roll over the map.)

http://storelocator.pepboys.com/pepboys/

[Super S]

I just took a look at that locator. I am surprised that they have that many stores all clustered in one area, and quite a distance from the next states where they operate. Makes me wonder also if there were locations at one point in eastern Washington as well as parts of Oregon other than the Portland metro area.

As somebody who does most car maintenance himself, I did shop at Pep Boys from time to time when they were open briefly in Vancouver. They were hit-or-miss as far as pricing went. But I heard some not-so-good stories regarding their service.

[Brian Lutz]

I do occasionally pass by the one in the SoDo neighborhood in Seattle, and it appears to be a service center only rather than a full Pep Boys store, and they appear to sell only tires. It looks like some of the other ones here are similar.

[jamcool]

I know Pep Boys bought the Discount Tire Center chain on the west coast (That Discount was NOT related to Discount Tire Co/America's Tire Co of Phoenix)