O'Reilly-fication of CSK

[Super S]

Now that all of the stores in my local area have been transformed into O'reilly, I thought I would weigh in with my impressions.

They have retained most of the Schuck's employees. While this is good in that nobody lost their jobs, it is also bad in that the incompetent people that Schuck's had are still working in the stores, and have had a few people added with no experience whatsoever that can't tell the difference between a Kia or Chevy. You almost have to research the part number yourself ahead of time to make sure. this in and of itself has sent me to other stores anytime I need a major part. The new hires tend to fall into the "anybody with a pulse" category.

As far as their "out front" merchandise, I have noticed a shift toward a lot of private label products. While some of them are made by major manufacturers, some are from questionable sources. And, despite their "low price guarantee" they are always bragging about, I have found their prices to often be higher, and they won't always match a competitor. This has happened so far with a water pump and a CV axle. I have, for the most part, noticed that O'Reilly is actually an even worse store to deal with than Schuck's, and have pretty much stopped going in there, shifting my shopping to the local NAPA and Carquest stores, as well as local chains such as Baxter and independent stores. From what I understand, O'Reilly has been very aggressive in stealing customers by luring them in with lower prices, and then raising the prices after a few months.

Quite Frankly, it would not hurt my feelings at all to see this chain disappear.

[storewanderer]

I have noticed similar with their former CSK Stores in Nevada. Same lousy service as CSK and same high prices. The few private label items yes are cheaper than what CSK offered but you can find similar items elsewhere for less money, so what is the point?

I do think they are doing a little bit better job with store upkeep and in-stock condition than CSK did, though. Maybe this is due to a decrease in traffic? Their stock has been doing very well...

Their pricing is higher than Pep Boys and Auto Zone. Also, their store hours are typically a bit shorter than Auto Zone. I'm not a big fan of Auto Zone but I'll take them over the other two...