Driveworks is a brand of budget auto parts that is sold by Advance Auto Parts. However, Advance doesn’t make Driveworks products themselves; instead, they source them from other manufacturers. Thus, it’s not clear who actually makes Driveworks parts.
Advance Auto Parts Overview and History
Advance Auto Parts is an American retailer of aftermarket and OEM auto parts. Advance Auto Parts currently operates in both the United States and Canada and has nearly 5,000 stores spread across North America. Advance Auto Parts also owns the distributor CarQuest, which operates in the United States, Canada, Mexico, and other locations in the Caribbean.
Advance Auto Parts was founded in 1932 by Arthur Taubman, an entrepreneur. Taubman launched his new chain by purchasing two existing stores from Pep Boys, who themselves had only been founded 11 years ago. These two original stores were both located in Virginia, one in Roanoke and one in Lynchburg.
In 1938, Advance Auto Parts began their first real expansion, with new operations commencing in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Advance was originally a variety store that sold auto parts, home supplies, and a range of other goods, but in 1972 the upper management decided to focus entirely on selling specialty auto parts.
Advance Auto Parts’ first truly major expansion, however, occurred in 1998 when they bought up the now-defunct Western Auto Supply Company. This helped Advance grow significantly as a company.
At the time, Advance only had 915 stores in the U.S., but after acquiring Western Auto, this number climbed to over 1,500. In April and November of 2001, Advance acquired Carport Auto Parts and Discount Auto Parts respectively, which brought them up to almost 2,500 stores.
In subsequent years, Advance went on to buy out a number of other auto parts retailers, including Trak Auto, BWP Distributors, and General Parts International.
More recently, in 2018, Advance announced a partnership with Walmart, to create an online specialty store for Walmart that would sell automotive parts. Advance Auto Parts also owns the DieHard battery brand, which it bought from Sears in 2019.
Over the years, Advance Auto Parts has acted as a sponsor for a number of different racing events. From 2009 to 2013, they were a sponsor of Monster Jam, and they are also the official parts retailer of NASCAR as a sponsor for several individual teams.
Advance has also sponsored two of the Force sisters, Courtney and Brittany, who are prominent drivers in the NHRA.
Driveworks Overview
Driveworks is Advance Auto Parts’ in-house brand of automotive parts. Driveworks makes a ton of different components, including parts for steering, suspension, and drivetrain systems.
Driveworks is marketed as a “budget” brand of auto parts and has gained a reputation for being a cheaper alternative compared to just about any other aftermarket brand out there.
It’s worth noting that Advance Auto Parts doesn’t actually make Driveworks parts themselves. Rather, Advance tends to source products from other manufacturers and sell them as Driveworks parts. This means that Driveworks parts aren’t from a specific manufacturer, but whoever Advance Auto Parts is outsourcing from at the time.
Compared to other aftermarket parts brands, Driveworks is somewhat opaque when it comes to information regarding their parts and history.
There’s no information to be found anywhere regarding exactly when Advance Auto Parts started selling Driveworks-branded products, and there’s also no information from any official sources about where they source their parts from.
To learn anything about Driveworks, your only real option is to explore the various online forums where Driveworks is mentioned and see if anyone there happens to know anything. In general, it’s quite difficult to find out anything about Driveworks except through word of mouth.
Is Driveworks a Good Brand?
Long story short, the general consensus of people who have tried Driveworks parts is that they’re decent enough for regular use, but they’re not the best if you’re particularly concerned about durability.
On various forums throughout the internet, it’s pretty common to see people bashing Driveworks parts for being poor-quality, but we would take these complaints with a grain of salt. While Driveworks parts are certainly cheaper compared to other aftermarket parts makers, they still seem to be fairly solid overall, especially if you take care to maintain them well.
Driveworks parts are probably fine to use in most cases, especially if you’re not planning on doing any extreme driving or replacing a particularly critical component of your vehicle.However, if you’re really concerned about the longevity of your replacement parts, it might be worth it to go for a more expensive option.
Driveworks is compared pretty frequently to MOOG as a relatively inexpensive aftermarket brand, so if Driveworks parts don’t appeal to you, you might want to consider checking out what MOOG has to offer.
Final Thoughts
If you’re in the market for some low-cost auto parts, Driveworks is a good option to consider. They have a large selection of different parts for sale, and since they’re sold by Advance Auto Parts, Driveworks parts are pretty accessible no matter where you live.
Driveworks parts probably aren’t ideal if you plan on driving your vehicle hard, and you might not want to use Driveworks parts for anything that should absolutely never break, but if you just need to fix a simple issue as quickly and cheaply as possible, Driveworks parts are definitely worth checking out.
Hi, I hope this article was helpful to you. If you've ever owned a car before, it's inevitable that you will deal with your fair share of car issues. I know I have, and that's why my passion is to research common car questions and answer them.
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