Mechanic Needs to Put a New Water Pump on a John Deere. Then a Worker Intervenes at the Auto Parts Store

The hardest part of fixing a 1978 John Deere, it turns out, isn’t the water pump, but getting a foot of hose from an auto parts store. That’s the lesson one man learned when a quick errand for a three-quarter-inch heater hose turned into a crash course in customer service, patience, and basic math.

It’s clear from the start of a recent viral clip that creator Jon (@vermeer2020) has spent more than a couple of hours of his life navigating the aisles of auto parts stores. With that time comes familiarity and product knowledge that the clerk at his local auto parts house was missing.

When it came time to locate and price a one-foot length of three-quarter-inch heater hose, Jon had to handle the transaction for the bewildered clerk.

“I just did his entire job for him. So I guess, you know, if an auto parts store's hiring at night shift, I guess I can come work,” he said in the clip that’s been viewed more than 78,000 times. “I did not think that I would have to do the entire job for him.”

What Happened At the Store?

The TikTok clip opens with Jon explaining that he was in the middle of replacing a water pump on a 1978 John Deere 2640 when he spotted a dry-rotted hose tucked underneath. Instead of running to a dealer for the exact part, he opted for a more expedient fix at the local auto-parts store two miles down the road. The plan was to grab a generic heater hose and get back to the project.

When he walked into the store, the clerk asked what the hose was for. Jon replied, “It don’t matter what it goes on ‘cause you can’t look it up.” But the clerk persisted with lookup routines, until at last they walked to a shelf of bulk hoses, found a three-quarter-inch piece, and the kid began to measure it, or try to.

With the appropriate length of hose secured, the unsolvable puzzle for the clerk was the price: “I don’t know how to price it,” he explained, so Jon walked him through the math: divide the cost of the whole 50-foot reel by 50 and charge that. End of story. He paid $2.53 plus tax, then walked out shaking his head.

Viewed in isolation, it’s a somewhat humorous anecdote. But the flurry of comments under the clip tells a broader story of generational shifts, staffing challenges, and the erosion of basic parts counter know-how. One viewer wrote, “That’s at places all over the country. You better be glad that you didn’t go to John Deere. That piece of hose might have cost 10.90 plus tax.” Another quipped, “We don’t have catalogs anymore. The only ones we have are the ones we save. We actually use Google more than anything.” One longtime parts counterperson lamented, “I’ve been in parts for 20+ years and basic training has dipped.”

How Much Do Auto Parts Store Workers Get Paid?

From industry wage data, it’s clear that the parts counter is not the high bar salary destination it once was. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, the mean hourly wage for “parts salespersons” was $19.75, for an annual income of about $41,080.

Even the median wage for “counter and rental clerks and parts salespersons” in the broader category was around $16.30 per hour. Job advertisements in many markets show starting pay for parts counter personnel at roughly $17 to $19 per hour. The implication is that if the pay is modest, the expectation of needing deep technical parts knowledge may also be shifting or diminishing.

That shift matters more than you might think if you’re out in the garage on a Saturday night with a wrench in one hand and a water pump in the other. Access to parts is only helpful if the counterperson knows where the hose reels are, how to measure them, and how to price them, especially when you’re not buying a pre-packaged kit from the dealer. Today’s auto parts stores often rely on digital look-up systems, SKUs, and complex retail pricing; the “I’m going to grab a foot of heater hose off the shelf” scenario is increasingly rare. For many DIYers and small-shop mechanics, that adds a hidden friction point.

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In Jon’s case, the local store stayed open until 9 p.m., so his two-mile trip seemed trivial until the counter interaction turned into a small tutorial. He walked out, grateful for the friendly clerk but also shaking his head at how the situation unfolded. “My God, this is a valuable member of society,” he says in the post. “I just did his entire job for him.”

What this clip also reveals is a broader cultural tension: between the DIY/mechanic mindset of knowing parts by feel and size, and the retail mindset of parts counter personnel working primarily from lookup systems and built-in logic. The comments reflect frustration (“It’s not a customer’s job to teach an employee how to do their job”) and empathy (“That kid has never replaced a heater hose. It’s a company fail”). Many commenters noted that they themselves have been “in parts for 20+ years” and lament how catalogs, in-store stock knowledge, and hands-on training are fading.

For the broader automotive industry landscape, that’s significant. As older parts clerks retire and chains increasingly use entry level staff fed by lookup-based training, you get a kind of skill gap: someone who can process an order, but maybe not anticipate a mechanic’s request for “a foot of ¾-inch heater hose” that must be cut to size and charged pro rata. For the person doing the mechanical work, that moment of confusion becomes a wrenching of its own.

Motor1 reached out to Jon via direct message and comment on the clip. We’ll be sure to update this if he responds.