I work at oreillys... just about everything I sell in the store is made in China

We used to sell a brand of pre-cut hoses made in the USA... well they finally replaced that with prestone (made in china) i almost cried

I always look at it this way.. If Oreilly's stocked all the top name brand USA made parts (if there are any left) and charged the higher amounts for them... the 1 percent, that is YOU GUYS AND ME, would be happy as hell! but the 99% of other cheap morons who have no clue, would stop buying from us and roll on down to autozone to save a buck because they either have NO IDEA or DO NOT CARE what goes on their vehicle.

Instead we sell Chinese parts that may have a 1 percent return rate to the 99 percent... and make money. I say 1 percent because I seriously thought about it, and out of every 100 customers that I ring up.. maybe 1 comes in with a problem.

The politics and business talk could go on and on... but I still buy from rock auto, online vendors, and my local jeep house

 

also when bad parts go back to the store, sometimes they get put back on the shelf by mistake probably.

 

all i know is any sensor, use oem on these as theyre picky and dont like alot of aftermarket ones and some i seen said have a certain distributor cap and spark plugs as jeeps dont like the newer ones?

 

Anything A-1Cardone.

 

I just found out that the replacement motor and trans mounts out there are mostly 100% garbage.

Avoid the Anchor mounts like the plague.
It looks like the Omix-Ada mounts are OK for stock replacement mounts, and the Mopar or Napa mount is OK for the trans mounts, but the stock design is flawed for the motor mounts especially.

Also avoid non OEM spark plugs and emissions components (NGK or Champion for spark plugs, NGK/NTK O2 Sensors)

Other sensors I have actually had decent success with. I have a $6 chinese TPS because I was curious if it would even work (that was 6 months ago, got it on eBay), oil pressure sender is some duracrap one that seems to work just fine (only a few weeks on that one). OEM junkyard pulls are in my rig as spares. Probably luck of the draw though...

Avoid Duralast u-joints, they last about 6 months before starting to have noticeable play. I honestly don't know why, they went in exactly like a Spicer would, got the same maintenance as my other Spicer joints, and yet after 5k miles on the road they had alot of lateral play in the bearing cap. Definitely junk.

Reman power steering pumps are really horrible. I had about a 3/4 failure or defect rate till I found a quality local rebuilder. Similar with the steering gear, the Oreillys one I put in had more play than mine with over 260K miles on it, pathetic.

Otherwise, its usually common sense or part availability that should dictate what you buy. My aftermarket water pump has about 20k miles on it, no issues yet. Same with the radiator, and most of the cooing system (buy good quality aftermarket stuff, like Spectre and Gates).

I would say that 75% of Jeep engineering is idiotic and subpar, so when parts fail I usually opt to upgrade so it either never fails again, or is far less likely.

Drum brakes for example, just throw them away and upgrade to discs. Motor mounts - factory design is really weak and just terrible, lots of aftermarket improved mounts available. The seats, I weigh 125lbs and mine even cracked on me - upgraded to Grand Cherokee seats, much better built.