I find myself somewhat disillusioned with Autozone's Duralast brand.

back in January I, being dissatisfied with the performance of my spark plug wires (and their condition: several of them had detachable ends which were not as orignially supplied) I stopped at NAPA and picked up a set of their Belden plug wires. they worked very well, but the car still exhibited some minor ignition glitches.

fast forward to last week: again finding myself with a bit of excess cash, I decided to replace fuel filter and distributor cap and rotor—all of them long overdue. having a $20 credit on my Autozone card, I decided to buy the parts there. aside from a leak due to failure to properly tighten a fuel hose clamp, everything worked well; better than ever, in fact.

today, on my way home from the Army recruiting office, my distributor cap caught fire. this is, as you may have gathered, not normal. were I not in the habit of keeping a wool mover's blanket in the back of my car, I might no longer have a car as the fire was attempting to spread up the plug wires in the direction of the fuel rail.

and the store manager was not in today, so tomorrow I get to try squeezing blood from a stoneconvincing him that they owe me new wires in addition to the cap and rotor.


#1 on the latest revision of my car parts wishlist: a fire extinguisher.


ETA: I've never had any problems with their brake products, but following this....