Honda/Acura uses an assymmetrical wiper blade setup as do many other manufacturers these days. For the longer driver-side blade they have chosen a 26" blade. While the largest replacement blade manufacturer (Trico) makes these, it seems that nobody sees fit to stock them.

The excuses vary: "We don't stock them because maintenance on those cars is free at the dealer." [It's not. We're taking Honda/Acura here, not Lexus.] "Import buyers don't change out their own parts." [We might, if we could actually buy those parts somewhere.] "Honda chose a non-standard size, we can't carry everything." [We're not talking Maserati here, it's a common part for one of the most popular vehicles sold in the US.]

But even that wasn't the end.

I also wanted to pick up a couple of quarts of oil (full synthetic) for my car, as I like to have some extra along. Like many new vehicles, mine uses 5W-30 multigrade. A bit different from the 10W-30 or 10W-40 that most cars used to use, but once again it's common to all new Hondas and many other vehicles.

Two stores didn't have the stuff in stock. Same story. "Not common." "Don't sell much of the stuff." You name it. I suspect that these might just be excuses, that they're all just waiting for the same delivery truck. The stuff is far too common for even these places to ignore it. But the customer service experience left much to be desired.

Two of the stores I surveyed also lacked a full complement of basic signal bulbs for my car. Honda mostly uses the glass-base 7440 series of bulbs which are a bit less common, but again these are standard on all Honda vehicles. You wouldn't think such stores would ignore a major manufacturer, but they do. In fact, none of the stores stock the H11 bulb that Honda has chosen to use for foglights on most vehicles.

So what did I see in my trip through Autozone, Kragen and Pep Boys?

I saw lots of parts for 15 year old Chevies. I'm sure that if I still had the 1973 Dodge Dart that I learned to drive in, there would be plenty of parts and accessories for it.

I saw lots of cheap "spinner" wheels and other gaudy accessories that neither I nor anybody else I know would be caught dead installing on their vehicles. Likewise I saw lots of odd-colored lighting kits that I suppose might get some gawks in the right part of town. (But not this part!)

I saw bunches of razor scooters and cheap BMX-style bikes collecting dust.

I saw a poor selection of moderate-grade tires.

I saw cheap stereos and speakers. Best Buy has a better selection, better quality, better prices and an installation shop that I might actually trust to do the job if I didn't want to do it myself.

I saw lots of fancy-looking "300 part tool kits for only $99.99!" Similar to the crap they sell on infomercials, and despite the good looks not something any knowledgable mechanic will have around. (There's a reason guys whose lives, safety and livelihoods depend on their tools receive regular visits from the Snap-On distributor.)

When it comes right down to it, what I saw was a bit of a time warp to me. A store that still seems to cater to the losers from my high school with their (even then) old, crappy "muscle" cars. Something that would be comfortable in a Dukes of Hazzard rerun, not something that's useful to a mainstream car buyer today.

I did not encounter any helpful employees. Mostly I encountered people who wanted to make exuses for the fact that they failed to carry common maintenance items for use on one of the most popular vehicles sold in the US.

In the end, my experience was summarized pretty well by one of the assistant managers who I quizzed about the unavailability of wiper blades for my car.

"We don't make much money on those little items," he said. "And you import buyers don't buy the big parts that are profitable for us." He recommended that I try a dealer, but said he'd be happy to try to help me with anything else in the future.

Small chance of that. I found the wiper blades, bulbs and other miscellaneous items I wanted at an online dealer and they should be here in three days. If I ever need anything more substantial, I'm likely to go to the same online dealer.

But the guy has a point. I'm never likely to need anything more expensive than a new battery. Not because I wouldn't be inclined to save money buy buying and installing parts on my own (I'm pretty good at that stuff) but because... well because it's a Honda, not an old Chevy. Even if I keep it as long as my previous vehicle -- eight years and change -- it is extremely unlikely that I'll need any kind of major mechanical part.

Which I think is part of the problem all these companies are facing. The parts they make money on are either faddish accessories that can go out of fashion as quickly as they arrive or are mechanical parts for less reliable, older vehicles. The first market is fashion-related as such is dependent on these companies' ability to stay ahead of automotive personalization trends. Reading a few automotive bulletin boards suggests that isn't the case. The "tuners" who are busily changing the appearances of their vehicles on a regular basis have discovered the same thing that I did -- that they good stuff is online, not at Pep Boys.

The huge boom in new car sales and extreme financing deals in recent years combined with the deline of the (genrally less reliable) domestic manufacturers suggests that the latter market is going to be hurt too. I don't think any of these companies have a strategy for dealing with a world in which Honda's reliablity is the norm.

Which leaves all these companies with the low-margin, cutthroat business of selling basic maintenance items: wiper blades, filters, replacement fluids, batteries. Stuff everybody needs but hardly the stuff of which great profits are made. It's not the kind of business that I would care to put any money into.