Auto Part Stores Are Closing Everywhere Heres Why

A lot of people might not know this, especially if you have a newer car or you have a warranty on your vehicle and you don't do any vehicle maintenance yourself, but behind the scenes for people who have older vehicles and people who are mechanically inclined are really starting to notice this trend. And that is that you're basically not allowed to work on your own car anymore. And why is that? We are seeing hundreds of auto parts stores close nationwide, guys. There was a big announcement earlier this year that Advanced Auto Parts is going to be closing 700 stores nationwide. And the reason why this is a big deal is because they are part of the repair ecosystem that keeps older vehicles on the road. So if you own a car that's 10 plus years old and you have a garage and some tools and a driveway, you can do a lot of repairs and maintenance on the vehicle yourself that a mechanic is going to charge you a lot of money for. And especially for middle class and working Americans, keeping an older vehicle running has become one of the only ways to avoid a massive car payment, which is very smart, and high insurance costs, as well as expensive financing, big car payments like we've talked about, brand new cars, the average price just hit $50,000 recently. The average price of a decent used car is also $25,000. It's crazy. Monthly payments are at record highs right now, both for used vehicles and brand new ones. And so the overreaching trend that we're starting to see is that older vehicles are becoming more difficult to repair. They're becoming more difficult for you to repair yourself because the parts are becoming harder to get, especially if the stores around you are closing. And if you want to take it into a mechanic, they are charging more than ever. And a lot of mechanics have been leaving this field recently. And if you have a modern car, you can pretty much forget about doing any sort of car maintenance on it yourself, except for the very basics, maybe an oil change, changing the brakes, refilling the windshield washer fluid, changing the wiper blades, whatever, like very simple things. But when it comes to anything with the engine or transmission or anything inside the vehicle, everything is run by a computer now. Cars are essentially computers on wheels. There are countless numbers of sensors and chips and diagnostics that only dealerships can do. And some automakers are even using subscription features now to access different parts of the vehicle. It's insane. And besides business costs going up for everybody, mechanics are in the same boat when it comes to how much they need to charge people, not only have their utilities and rents and payroll expenses gone up, but mechanics also need to hang on to software subscriptions. They need to have expensive diagnostic tools. They need to have electronic calibration equipment. It's not just some wrenches and tools. It's very expensive things that can determine what's wrong with your vehicle. And obviously an accurate diagnosis is going to greatly impact how much you're going to pay for a repair. And you'd be surprised how often mechanics can be wrong if they don't have the right software or tools to tell you what's going on with your car. Now I'm going to get into some of the other auto parts stores and places like this that are closing right now. But first, I want to give you guys my own little tangent on advanced auto parts. We have an advanced auto parts in Miami beach. I think there might be more than one, but the one close to where I live has really gone downhill guys. Like it's still open. They haven't closed this store, but you go in there and it's just like so many other stores nowadays where you have like one person working behind the counter. And you know, there's like a line of people, everybody needs to check different parts and get all kinds of information, you know, and just one person servicing you, maybe two, if you're lucky. And then on top of that, you're waiting forever. And by the time you get to the front, Oh, no English. Yeah, that's right. Nice, nice going South Florida. That's what they do. They hire people now that don't even speak English to handle the customer facing position at the cash register, trying to figure out what kind of parts you need. Like, how are you supposed to do this guys? Do they expect people to stand there and use like Google translate on your phone or something just to be able to communicate with the person at the counter? It is getting ridiculous. And I don't even go there anymore. I mentioned wiper blades earlier. I just had to replace those on my Jeep. Instead of going to the auto parts store, I just ordered them online and I got them delivered to my house and I replaced them myself. Okay. Because I know if I would have went to the store, then I would be standing in there waiting in line. Cause I don't know what size I need to get. I need to have them punched in the computer and figure out what size I need to get. And then even if I already knew the size ahead of time, doesn't matter. I still have to wait for them to check out. There's no self checkout or anything like that, which I normally hate. But if there's a huge line and self checkouts open, I'll gladly use it just to get out of there. But that's not the case. And I don't go there anymore just because of that. The last experience I had there was exactly what I just told you guys. I'm like, okay, I'm done yet another place. I'm not going to come anymore. And it was not always like that. They used to have more people working there, people who speak English and were able to help you much faster and more efficiently. But just like all these other businesses, they are cutting staff down to the bone and making the customer service experience absolutely horrible. But it's not just advanced auto parts. We have pep boys. They have been shrinking down dramatically over the past few years as well. They have closed down hundreds of their retail stores nationwide, and they are now shifting heavily towards service and repair centers where at least you can take your car in and get it fixed. Pep boys says that it's much harder to maintain the traditional walk-in auto parts store model because of the online competition. Of course, you have Amazon and Walmart that will deliver things to you the same day in a lot of cases, so it saves you a trip to the store. I'm 100% guilty of using that as well. But then when you throw in the fact that modern vehicles are becoming a lot more difficult for the average person to work on, of course, that adds an extra layer of complication to the mix as well. And also, you have not only are newer vehicles harder to work on, they're more complicated, and you just can't in a lot of cases if you don't have the right equipment. But in general, younger generations are just not as interested in getting their hands dirty and doing the work themselves. And I don't blame them. It's not for everybody, guys. I sit somewhere in the middle. When I was younger, and I used to live in Illinois, and I had access to a garage and a driveway and all of my dad's tools because he actually used to be a mechanic way back in the day, he had a bunch of tools already to work on cars. And I used to do a lot of vehicle maintenance myself back then when I lived at home. And even when I moved to Miami, get this, I had my Camaro. My water pump went out like the first year that I was living here. Not even the first time either, by the way. But I literally tore apart that front end of the car and did the whole job by myself, which is very complicated on a 1997 Z28 Camaro. I did that all by myself in the basement garage parking lot of the building I was living in at the time. And by the time I was almost done, one of the board members came down there and said, hey, you can't do this here. You're going to have to have a fine if you're doing this. I'm like, well, I'm almost done. I won't do it again. But it was miserable. It took me all day to do it with makeshift amounts of tools and equipment. I didn't have a lot, but I ended up doing it. But that was the last real big job I did myself on my own car because living here in Miami and the condo situation and having no place to work on it and not the sufficient amount of tools is just too difficult, you know. So I stopped working on my cars after that, found a good mechanic and started taking it to him. Plus, I feel like I crossed the threshold a long time ago where I started making enough money where it made more sense to pay somebody else to do it so I can go out there and continue working and making my money rather than wasting, you know, many, many hours working on the car. But a lot of things are still pretty easy to do. You can still change tires, guys. You can change oil. You can change wiper blades. You can change brakes. A little bit more involved, but not crazy. There's a lot of things you can still do that don't cost a lot and will save you a lot of money in repairs if you learn how to do it yourself. But of course, you do need to have some tools for this stuff. We all know how common it is these days for your personal information to get in the hands of the wrong people. And that's why today's video is sponsored by Delete.me. Delete.me is a hands-free subscription service that removes your personal information that's being sold online. And Delete.me's privacy experts remove you from hundreds of data brokers all year long. They will remove things like your name, your address, your photos, your email, past addresses, phone numbers, social media accounts, and they even do custom removal requests if you see something that you want removed that they don't already grab on your behalf. And I have been working with Delete.me over two years now. And since then, they have removed my information from over 327 different websites and data brokers, as you can see here. So if you want to take some more control over your personal privacy, make sure you sign up for Delete.me today. Make sure to get 20% off your Delete.me subscription by joining today using my link down below at joindelete.me.com slash board and arrow, or use the QR code on the screen. Another car parts place that's been struggling is CarQuest. Now, Advance Auto Parts acquired CarQuest years ago. They had a lot of locations that were shut down back then. You also have a lot of stores disappearing like AutoZone, O'Reilly Auto Parts, Napa Auto Parts. Places like that are all shutting down, not in the massive numbers like Advance Auto, but little by little, you're seeing them all disappear. So you're starting to see the same thing happen with auto parts stores that we saw happen in many other industries, like in pharmacies and hardware stores, electronics retailers, and many other sectors of brick and mortar retail, where people just can increasingly shop online for a better price and the convenience. And the other reason that these stores have been closing like Napa Auto Parts, for example, they've been closing because they have labor shortages. They have shrinking profit margins, rising inventory costs. When you combine those problems with everything we already discussed, well, that's a recipe for stores closing down because you can only stay in business for so long when these problems are happening. And even repair shops themselves are struggling right now. A lot of smaller independent repair shops are having trouble surviving because modern cars increasingly require that specialized equipment and they have to pay the manufacturer to have access to some of the software or getting the right people available to work on these vehicles is increasingly harder to do and expensive. So ultimately, this ends up pushing more of the work for vehicles to a lot of the repair shops, a lot of the dealerships and specialized service centers. At the same time, when you see the mechanics leaving, you have a lot of experienced mechanics who are retiring or they're just getting burnt out because there's too much work and they're just leaving the industry entirely, making it more expensive because the more there's labor shortage, the more the existing labor is going to charge. Guys, it's always the law of supply and demand with any economic situation. And you have a lot less young people entering the field. And one of the main reasons is because modern vehicles are becoming incredibly complicated to work on. And mechanics today need to have computer skills. They need to have software skills. They need to have training with electrical skills. There's constant certifications and updates that need to happen. And having a small repair shop compete with the dealerships is becoming increasingly more difficult. Although I would personally say I think it's still worth it in 2026 to find an independent repair shop and a mechanic that you trust because it's still going to be a lot cheaper than a dealership in almost every single case. They're going to be less busy, not everywhere, but that's definitely the case in large populated areas like this. For example, I have a Jeep that I bought brand new a few years ago, right? The dealership here in Miami, the Jeep dealership is so bad. The customer service is so bad that I don't even take the vehicle to that Jeep dealership anymore, even though it's the closest and it's where we bought it from. I drive all the way up to Palm Coast, Florida, four and a half hours away from here. And I stay there a few days just to get my Jeep service because I bring it in and it's no problem guys. They're not super slammed. They get my car done the same day. They don't make me wait days or even over a week for my car without even giving me a rental car or any replacement like they do here in Miami. And the people are much friendlier and it just works. So I don't mind driving all the way up there just to get my vehicle service, but that's how bad it is. That's how bad the dealership experience has become. Even if you buy a vehicle from them, I have an independent mechanic that I used to take my vehicles here to as well, more of the Camaro than anything, but now I don't have my Camaro here anymore. So I haven't really been going there, but he was always a lot cheaper than taking it to the local Chevy dealership and reliable. Most you ever had to keep my car for was maybe a couple of days if it was something major or the parts weren't in. Here's the other part of the story. Because of the rise of electric vehicles, it's still not extremely popular here in the US. The adoption rate has been less than stellar. A lot of people still haven't bought these vehicles, but because a lot of people have, that means those cars don't need oil changes. They don't have as many moving parts. They have fewer fluid systems and the less routine maintenance overall. Yeah, man. What's your name, man? You said Garfield? Garfield, like the cartoon. Yeah. I think my brother told me about you. I started watching you for like four years. I was watching you like a couple of weeks ago. Oh, cool, man. I'm glad you ran into me out here and said hello. Let me get, well, I don't have a phone. I was going to get a picture with you. Let me get a picture with my daughter. She had me test driving her car because she thinks it's driving by itself. Oh, really? When she step on the gas, it takes off. I was just talking about how these cars supposedly don't need as much maintenance as the gas cars, but maybe that's not true. Oh, she's telling me it did something weird where they gave her a spare tire, but after they put the spare, like she'll stop, the power just takes off. Really? That's dangerous. I'm testing it, but it's driving fine to me. And that was just from I got to make sure my feet are not away from this car here. You live over here? No, I don't live over here. I live on the beach, but I'm over here today shooting videos. Yeah, I live like one block back. I hear you talk about the housing market over here. How's it going? Well, it's slow, man. A lot of things are not moving. Prices are too high. People can't afford it. Now you got gas prices and groceries and inflation going up. Who's thinking about buying houses right now? Unless you're well off. I mean, I like to do a lot of videos. Oh, this is a beautiful neighborhood. I love shooting over here. It's come down here. My dog actually leave the house and come by himself. Yeah, exactly. You don't have to worry about it. That's really good. All right, man. Good to meet you, Garfield. All right. All right. See you, man. I'm not going to be on your thing, right? Oh, yeah, you're going to be on. All right. When does it come out? Either tomorrow or the next day. All right. So take a look at it tomorrow or yeah, Wednesday or Thursday. All right. Take care, man. All right. See you. All right. Well, that was super cool. Shout out to Garfield for stopping and saying hello. Just like I always tell you guys, if you see me out in the wild, feel free to stop and say hi. Everybody loves it when this happens and these moments just make it into the videos. And honestly, I love it, too. And what a coincidence. He was driving a Tesla and he said because his daughter just put a spare tire on the car, it's been doing all kinds of wonky stuff. Like it just starts driving by itself. Like that's pretty scary. You know, going back to that point about cars being computers on wheels, like it's one thing with the gas cars. Yes, they do have computer systems, guys, but I have never heard of something like that happening with a gas car. This is happening in a Tesla, you know? Yet another reason why you might want to be skeptical about getting one of these vehicles. I mean, I'm not sitting here telling you what to do one way or the other, but you don't hear about these stories with gas powered cars. It's with electric. So even though there might be less repair opportunities with those cars, when they do come up, they can be very strange and you're sitting there dealing with essentially a software slash AI issue. And that's pretty crazy. But it is true that electric vehicles do have a lot less parts, a lot less moving parts. You know, you need fuel pumps or spark plugs or alternators or radiators or exhaust systems or transmission parts, nothing like that. You don't need any of that stuff for an electric car. And so that's another part of the business that is suffering with these auto parts stores. Also, the reality is a lot of people are so broke right now that people are driving less, especially with these high gas prices. They're postponing maintenance on the vehicles as long as possible. And they're trying to stretch the old cars until the wheels fall off. And that also means less people going to mechanics, less people stopping into auto parts stores to buy parts. And the reality is, guys, the older a car gets, the less likely it's going to be on the road, the less likely someone's going to hang on to it long term. Those old cars get traded in or just sold to somebody who literally drives it until it's dead. And the next stop is the junkyard for these vehicles. And so the further in the future we move, then the less you are going to have old cars that are repairable by the average Joe. Now let's change the subject a little bit and move on to what's going on with different jobs and different industries, guys, because the job market obviously has been a huge controversial topic lately with how many people have been losing jobs and how many businesses are shutting down. In fact, that's what we just talked about with the auto parts stores shutting down. And every time one of those stores shuts down, people lose jobs. Well, in places like Washington state, it is getting very, very bad over there with the amount of businesses that are going to be leaving due to all of the taxes going on. There's some new information that was sent to me where about one in four Washington employers is now deciding that they're going to move out of the state. And that number has just tripled in the past 16 months. And this is all because of the extra taxes that are being threatened over there. According to the 2026 Washington employers survey, they collected 407 employer responses. They said that the business exits that they're anticipating are up 24% from a year ago. And the reason for this is because they recently just passed a record $9.4 billion in new taxes in 2025. And they also signed a 9.9% income tax this year on households above $1 million. This doesn't apply to just tech billionaires. This is anybody who's earning over a million dollars a year. And naturally, you're going to see a lot of business owners in that category. But another 55% of people said they're considering moving their personal residence to another state, which is up from 44% just a quarter ago. You have 35% of these businesses that are in the beginning stages of looking at moving somewhere else. 28% are actively searching for locations. And 18% have already developed a formal relocation plan. And it is now inevitable. And at the same time, plans for people expanding businesses are completely collapsing. Only 9% of employers in Washington plan to grow in the state this year, which is down from 20% planning expansion just 16 months ago. That is a major, major problem for Washington state. And so what you're going to see from this is you're going to see the level of store closures and businesses going under and job losses hit different places disproportionately due to all of these things that these politicians propose. Guys, they think it's a good idea to add in all these extra taxes, but how many people actually have to leave in order for them to realize that this strategy isn't working? And you have other states who are actively recruiting all these businesses that are thinking about moving away from the state. So it's not like there's a shortage of places to go. It's just like, I have options. Where am I going to go where I'm going to be treated the best? And that's typically what businesses and money does is they go to places where their business is treated the best. And the area gets rewarded with all the new jobs moving to that new area. Like one of the most recent examples of this was Starbucks moving its headquarters away from Washington state and into Tennessee. And guess what? Starbucks just created 2000 new jobs in Nashville and away from Washington state. And you know what Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson said about this? She just said, I think that the claims that millionaires are going to leave our state are super overblown. And if they do, then goodbye. Well, it's going to be easy to say that until you see your tax revenue collapse to the floor, and then you're going to be scrambling and wondering where you're going to get your money from to run your town. And sort of related to this, Airbnb CEO this week, he just stepped forward and said that any sort of middle managers at companies right now are going to be completely eliminated over the next couple of years. And I think he's right because we've already been seeing a lot of those jobs be eliminated recently. He says, I don't think managers will have any value in the future. So if you're a manager at some type of company right now, you could be the highest on the chopping block. And the reason makes sense. If they can figure out a way for AI to do your job and replace a very expensive role, because managers typically make quite a bit more than the employees underneath them, then they're saving themselves a ton of money. So naturally they're attacking the positions that they can save the most money on. They say that managers who just manage people as part of their jobs are going to become obsolete. This is coming from a company that has also been a part of the mass layoffs that have been going on over the past five or six years. Coinbase CEO, he pretty much came forward recently and said the same thing while they announced a 14% reduction in their workforce. And basically if you want to survive as any sort of managerial role right now, you need to be involved in the nitty gritty of the company's work if you want to survive in the age of AI. So they say that managers need to play more active roles in getting their hands dirty and actually helping their teams move forward in a substantial way. And if that's not you, then you're probably going to be on the chopping block. So just something to keep in mind guys, like you need to be thinking about where you live right now and how much the area is either creating new jobs or losing jobs based on the political climate, based on the local economy. Things like that are important to consider in this job market. You need to be wondering, am I part of an organization that's actively closing down a ton of locations? Just like we talked about with advanced auto, that's something else to think about. You need to look at your actual position. Is your position something that can be easily replaced? That's something else that's very important to wonder about right now as well. So all food for thought for you guys to consider. So if you enjoyed this video, make sure you're subscribed to the channel. And if you don't want to wait for my next video to come out, check out this one on the screen right over here, and I'll see you in the next one.