A woman is attempting to shed light on a little-known AutoZone practice in an effort to save her fellow drivers some money when they are in need of new brake pads.
“Hey, y’all, I just want to put y’all on game real quick,” TikToker @thatgirlleda starts her video. “If you ever need new brakes, go get your brakes from AutoZone.”
She says that once customers put their new brake pads on, they can take their old brake pads in for a refund on the new ones. All you need is a receipt, @thatgirlleda claims.
“I wish I would have known a little sooner,” she adds.
“There’s a lot of people who know this, and there’s a lot of people who don’t. SHARE so the people can know!” the TikToker captioned her video, which now has 238,000 views.
AutoZone warranties
AutoZone mentions on its site that it offers varying warranties on some of its products, like brake pads and rotors. But those warranties don’t cover what @thatgirlleda is referring to—normal wear and tear. They cover manufacturing defects.
It’s also possible AutoZone recently changed what its warranty covers or got more strict about having store employees adhere to it in the last year.
One reviewer of the “Duralast Gold Ceramic Disc Brake Pad Set DG1759” complained that AutoZone quietly changed the warranty coverage. They wrote about a year ago, “AutoZone has changed their ‘ lifetime warranty’ and doesn’t tell you until you try to get new pads. They used to give you new pads for the old ones without hesitation at no cost.”
Why is it so inconsistent?
Viewers of @thatgirlleda’s video and others online also had inconsistent results when they tried to swap their bakes for free.
One AutoZone customer who attempted to swap out their brakes also didn’t have as much luck as @thatgirlleda. They commented on her video to share that a store worker told them, “They don’t do it anymore.”
Some workers and customers say the practice is still very much in place. So the answer may be that it’s case-by-case, depending on the store location you go to and the worker who is helping you out.
One apparent AutoZone worker in a Reddit thread recommended two ways for customers to swap out their old brakes with new ones.
The first—and “easiest”—method, they say, is to bring in their old brakes when they come in for new ones “without any money changing hands.”
This second method is the same one @thatgirlleda touts in her video.
The worker on Reddit shared, “If you need that car to drive back and forth, you can pay for a new set now, do the job, then bring the old ones back. We’ll refund your purchase of the new ones at that point.”
They also added that if a customer wants to upgrade their brake pads, they can simply pay the difference.
The Daily Dot has reached out to AutoZone about whether this is an actual practice the automotive store employs.
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