<rant irritated="on">

 

My stoplight switch went out in my '96 outback wagon and my wife got stuck with a car that wouldn't come out of part. Unhappiness ensued. So, I got her home and thought "Not a problem, right? Just get a new switch and slap it in."

 

Well, I ordered one from the dealer, but it wouldn't be in for a couple/three of weeks (special order). So, as a quick fix, I got the cheapest one they sell at Autozone. It only lasted 300 miles.

 

The OEM switch still wasn't in, so I went back to AZ and traded their piece of junk in for their more expensive piece of junk -- a "Duralast Gold" switch that has a lifetime warranty. I slapped it in and was good to go, right? When the OEM switch arrived, I thought I might as well keep the AZ one in because it was working fine. It lasted a lousy 1k miles. My wife got stuck with a car that wouldn't come out of park again. Unhappiness ensued.

 

Finally, I put the OEM switch in and am hoping it lasts 250k miles like the last one.

 

Conclusion: don't buy Autozone stoplight switches. Pieces of junk.

 

</rant irritated="still on">

 

BTW, I drilled a hole in the cover the first time this happened, right over the solenoid override lever that you can use to get out of park when stuff like this happens (normally, you have to remove a large cover to get to it). I then put a round body panel clip in the hole so it looked like it was meant to be there. This new "feature" came in handy when the second switch failed -- I just had her pull up the clip and push a pencil into the hole to get it out of park.

Edited February 23, 201511 yr by bendecker

Funny,  I put a switch in an Impreza last week.  I think there were at least 3 or 4 failed aftermarket switches sitting in the console.

I've refused to even as much as go into an autozone for over a year now.

I'll go to advance occasionally, but I much prefer Napa or Federated. Especially after advance tried to sell me 15 psi rated fuel hose when I asked for high pressure fuel injection hose.

300psi injection hose from Napa.

Yeah AZ is junk. Any time I've subbed a duralast over an oem part, I've regretted it.