I bought exhaust bolts this way, and of course they didn't fit. The spacers on the bolts were longer than the OEM bolts, so fumes would go into the cabin. Lesson learned..
It would be nice if they fixed this problem. I saw a ton of parts that incorrectly said they'd fit my vehicle. Windshield wipers are an easy example. You'll see varying length wiper blades they say will fit.
Edit: It seems like they could favor search results matching specific vehicles to combat this. For example, a part should be viewed as less relevant for claiming compatibility with more vehicles. This would be problematic for universal stuff like tires, wiper blades, and other accessories, but I'm sure they could differentiate between the legit universal stuff and the seller's who claim their part fits every vehicle in existence.
I'm sure this is harder than I'm making it out to be, I can't imagine all the edge cases they have to deal with. But some effort would really help, and I'd be more likely to buy this stuff online if it wasn't so damn difficult to verify that the part is compatible.
I run into this same problem on eBay. I search for my make and model, and tons of junk aftermarket parts show up that won't fit without thousands of dollars of fabrication. Sure that $150 turbo will fit my car, after I fabricate 50 parts. I now have to put "-fits" in my search query, but I'm sure that omits tons of legitimate results. But eBay makes a grip of money from all the listings of crap generic parts, so they have no incentive to stop it.
eBay is just horrible at cleaning up their own website. Go to games and consoles, select PS4, then select "consoles" subcategory - I would say 80% of items there are not consoles, they are accessories, games, pads, everything that should be in their own category. Same with any other product - which makes eBay incredibly frustrating to use and just a bad experience in general. Not to mention the amount of clearly counterfeit, fake, pirated games that are on sale - you'd think it would be easy to spot and remove, but ebay doesn't seem to care.
> I bought exhaust bolts this way, and of course they didn't fit. The spacers on the bolts were longer than the OEM bolts, so fumes would go into the cabin. Lesson learned..
If one orders a spare that doesn't fit in the existing vehicle, it may prompt purchasing a vehicle instead. Who knows?
I should of been more specific. I just did a quick check to confirm, and I see three wiper blade sizes (24", 16", and 14") on the first page of results. My car doesn't have a model/trim with a rear wiper blade.
It would be nice if they fixed this problem. I saw a ton of parts that incorrectly said they'd fit my vehicle. Windshield wipers are an easy example. You'll see varying length wiper blades they say will fit.
Edit: It seems like they could favor search results matching specific vehicles to combat this. For example, a part should be viewed as less relevant for claiming compatibility with more vehicles. This would be problematic for universal stuff like tires, wiper blades, and other accessories, but I'm sure they could differentiate between the legit universal stuff and the seller's who claim their part fits every vehicle in existence.
I'm sure this is harder than I'm making it out to be, I can't imagine all the edge cases they have to deal with. But some effort would really help, and I'd be more likely to buy this stuff online if it wasn't so damn difficult to verify that the part is compatible.