auto parts interchange book

[miami man]

i was looking for a rear strut for our 93 mazda 323 and the interchange book at the junkyard said it could only come off that model and nothing else so i do a new auto parts search on the computer and the part number for the rear strut matches other models. who is correct in this situation?

[JoDan]

Well if part #'s match different cars then I would say they interchange.

[boydg1]

…. Who put the book together? Are they reputable?

i was looking for a rear strut for our 93 mazda 323 and the interchange book at the junkyard said it could only come off that model and nothing else so i do a new auto parts search on the computer and the part number for the rear strut matches other models. who is correct in this situation?

[Aspire]

…. Who put the book together? Are they reputable?

I thought JYs use Hollander.

The difference may be something like a brackets on the strut; are you cross-referencing them correctly? For instance, I just put Kia struts on my Aspire & they bolted in with no modification, but I couldn't put my Aspire struts onto the Kia, because the Kia strut needs extra brackets for the sway bar. Soooo, if an non-OEM shock company decides that they want to put the Kia brackets onto all of their struts, making them more universal, then they would do this for certain business reasons; stock takes up less space, greater chance of selling out inventory, etc.....and in so doing, THEIR catalog would show a different cross-reference than the JY that is using the cross referencing system for the OEM shocks.

Did I complicate it enough?

[JPT]

Rock Auto lists the same part number for KYB rear struts to fit the following 1993 cars.

Mazda 323
Mazda Protege
Mazda MX3
Ford Escort
Mercury Tracer

Hope this helps

[miami man]

thanks for all of the respones