I’m not sure exactly how to phrase the question, but let’s consider the likes of Autozone, Advance, O’Reilly, and maybe NAPA. Probably the most common I see around me. Is there one that is known to be the most corner-cutting, least reliable house brand parts, or something?
I’m curious because I usually have no brand loyalty and will just run into the nearest whichever store to rent a tool or get a part, etc. and am wondering how lucky I’ve gotten that nothing has been an outright lemon.
This is a question where you ask 10 people and get 10 answers. Napa tends to have the best quality parts but their pricing reflects that. In 15 years though, I have never experienced a failure of any part I’ve ever bought from Autozone. The only time that might qualify is when I pulled spark plug wires off my Tahoe last month and 3 of 8 of the connectors on the spark plug ends broke off, but they’d been on for 5 years and I was pulling off with visegrips. But AZ replaced them with new under warranty for free, no questions.