Local motor factor or Internet/chains?

[Kiltox]

Had to buy a battery last night at about 6:45pm - long after my local factor had closed. Went there anyway and by luck the guy was still there and sold me a battery for £48 which is a fair bit cheaper than Halfords etc despite having officially closed more than an hour ago

So - do you tend to buy from a local factor or do you just get stuff online or from the bigger chains (be it Halfords or the likes of Euro Car Parts, GSF, etc)

I find that the small outfit I go to can match/beat everyone else on price anyway, and the service is fantastic (even just small things like offering to fit wiper blades when I ran in on a wet day wearing a suit on my way to work so that I didn't get dirty/wet )

[ROOODBOY]

I use a local privately owned single outlet for most of my stuff.

I prefer to support local businesses, even if I pay a little more (although he is very reasonable), plus he is very knowledgable and it's much nicer to deal with someone who I've gone to for years than a constantly changing and mostly disinterested crew at a large chain.

In my opinion!

[ex vtskid]

If the local factors are competitive I use them as they're good guys, as has been said they're mainly the cheapest for me anyway and even if they're not I don't mind spending a few quid extra there. If it's more than a few quid I will buy off the internet, this is quite rare though.

[HellDiver]

I alternate between ECP and the local guy, depending on what I need. The battery for the Mondeo came from ECP as it was the same price but had a longer warranty. ARB droplinks came from the motorfactors because ECP were double the price and only had one in stock (how you have one in stock of items changed in pairs?).

[LuS1fer]

Depends. I bought a back box for the Golf from a local motor factor and it was a pile of crap - looked like it had been made by a monkey and it didn't really fit and dropped off after melting part of the raer valance. £36 down the drain so I has a stainless steel pipe fitted by a specialist for £40.

I generally try to use motor factors for tools but even their prices are going up and at least with halfords, if something doesn't work, there's rarely an argument when taking it back.