Many of them will give you garage price if you do a lot of business with them. This is extremely effective with a "mom and pop" auto parts store. It may be more difficult with an auto parts chain stores (unless you know the owner).

The scenario may go something like this: "Hi, Mr. Owner, my name is John Doe. I am presently purchasing a lot of parts for repairs to my 1987 Corvette convertible. I probably buy at least $2,000 worth of parts and accessories a year. I have been going from store to store trying to find the best price for each of the parts I need. This is starting to become tiresome and aggravating. I would like to make you a proposition I think will benefit both of us. If you will give me dealer price on everything I purchase, I will keep all of my business here and not bother to shop around. That would mean a bonus of at least $2,000 in sales that you weren't expecting. What do you think"?

This is even more so if you are buying a quantity of parts over a short period of time; as in restoring or fixing up an older car.

You may even want to up the yearly expenditure figure because you might be able to start buying parts for your friends and neighbors at this rate and charge them your cost or add 5% to 10% for your time and hassle. Either way, you will entice the store owner to give you a deal because you will have a higher yearly expenditure and you will make a few bucks on the side (you can use this as your home-based business mentioned in the previous chapter, if you wish). If you decide to sell parts to your friends, do not let the owner know this. It can cause hard feelings, since he probably would have sold the part at full retail to them.

Next...