[legion]

Yep, the majority of part-counter people I deal with aren't car people and to them it's just a job. (Not a happy confluence of work and hobby.)

Over the summer I was changing the starter in a '93 Mercury Grand Marquis. The owner had bought the wrong starter.

We went to the local Advance Auto Parts and asked if there were any mid-year differences in '93. Parts counter guy told us "no" and asked where the Grand Marquis was made, we told him "Canada". He told us that Canadian starters were different and it had to do with the emissions systems differences. I thought that didn't make a whole lot of sense, but gave up for the day and went home. Upon 30 seconds of online research, I discovered that ALL Crown Vics and Grand Marquis are made in Canada and there were mid-year differences in the '93 starter!

We went back the next day, got a different guy, and had to special-order the correct starter. Apparently they were only put on the first few cars that year before repeated failure forced a redesign before the model year was over...then the design didn't change for the next 17 years. So we apparently had one of the good early starters that took 17 years to fail.