New phone app looks to change consumer car industry

Jul 04, 2023

Stan Mirzayev is the CEO and founder of the new car parts app Parts Pass. (Kayley Media LLC/ Submitted)

Stan Mirzayev, founder and CEO of Parts Pass, is looking to use his newly developed auto parts app to give the consumer car industry a shakeup.

Under Mirzayev's model, the average person who needs a part for their car and wants to make the fixes at home can download the zero-cost Parts Pass app, take a picture of the car using the interface, find the part needed through a self-diagnosis software, and then wait for the product to be delivered to their front door.

"What separates us is we have quality parts; we have the name brand parts," he said. "I really wanted to focus on the value that we bring, which is efficiency."

Parts Pass will be available on the Apple app store by the end of August, then will be available on Android within eight months. Initially, it is going to focus on the West Coast and Southwest regions of the country, but will be available nationwide.

"We are excited to launch and grow very quickly," Mirzayev said. "We really want to bring value in efficiency, accountability, and accuracy as well. So that's the most important thing for us."

Mirzayev, who is a board member of the Arizona Automotive Institute in Glendale, has been in the automotive industry for his entire professional life. He and his family emigrated to the United States from the Soviet Union in 1990 when he was 4 years old and, by high school, he was already helping out in his father's repair shop.

When he and his family moved to the Valley of the Sun after 9/11, they bought a repair shop and worked together for more than 18 years.

"I knew my dad gave a lot of his personal desires to provide for the family, and I was impacted by that significantly," Mirzayev said. "I stood by my father and we grew our business together."

About five years ago, while working in that jointly owned repair shop with his father, Mirzayev noticed a problem in the repair shop scene. He found himself spending an unprofitable amount of time searching for replacement parts.

"I would go through the same thing, same script, every single day of my life, which is I would call different suppliers and give them the year, make and model of the car, and then I would ask them, ‘Do you have this part?’" he said. "That took an average of about 10 to 15 minutes per car. On average, we would work on about six cars per day, so that's an hour of my time that was wasted."

In response to that problem, Mirzayev started an app called Parts Detect, which stood to serve as an easier way for mechanics to search for parts from local suppliers.

"We went door to door selling to these large enterprises like AutoZone, Napa, Carquest, O’Reilly Auto Parts, and I pitched them the idea of creating a marketplace for mechanics to alleviate that huge burden that I would have to go through," he said. "And slowly but surely, they started signing up."

Parts Detect has seen success for the last five years, but Mirzayev again saw another opportunity to fill a void.

"There's a huge opportunity that we’re not tapping into, which is the do-it-yourself-ers," he said. "I would go to these local parts houses like AutoZone, and I would watch the customers interact with the counter guys and watch the amount of phone calls that would be burning the counter guys as well, also the really uncomfortable feeling customers got when they would have to wait in line … you have to kind of talk that lingo. So, I’m like, ‘Hey, there's an opportunity here.’"

From there, Parts Pass was born.

For Mirzayev, Parts Pass is not limited to the "do-it-yourself-ers." He said that anyone who is looking for a part for their vehicle and then wants to take it to a mechanic to have them install it can do that as well. He said by purchasing parts on Parts Pass, and not through the potential mechanic, the consumer can save money.

"You can actually take it to a repair shop and have them install it," Mirzayev said. "So, you’re saving some money on that part and getting the quality that you need as well. That's what is really exciting, is we have a lot of room to grow here."

Eventually, Mirzayev would like to serve as a connector between the Parts Pass user and a potential mechanic. He also foresees Parts Pass adding some sort of tutorial to its software, providing parts purchasers with the knowledge to install the part themselves.

"As we continue to evolve, we want to create this ecosystem where you can find the part, have it delivered, and then we want to really expand on that installation part of it," he said. "Whether you want to install it yourself, we’ll provide you a tutorial of how to install certain parts, or you can actually go through a database that we’re trying to build out now of reputable local auto repair shops that are willing to install that part for you."

With all of the work Mirzayev has put into making the car parts industry a more efficient process, he is looking forward to seeing the change that Parts Pass provides to the industry. Long term, he wants to put the power into the hands of the consumer.

"My hope is to really put the power in consumers’ hands so they can be in control of the maintenance and repairs of their own vehicles," he said. "What we want to do is make that search process easy with no barriers and really eliminate that bottleneck of the search for replacement parts.

"People really want a platform that they can trust, both from the experience side of it and from the quality of the part itself."

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