In my experience most of the "REAL" parts guys that can find you the parts you're looking for, have wrenched themselves, or at least been exposed to the repair end of the automotive business. As has already been mentioned, I look my own parts up and pre pay, then pickup locally, or just order from Rock Auto, or other online vendors if I have the luxury of waiting.
I also made my living wrenching for the most part of my adult life, from graduating from high school/vo tech auto mechanics in 1970, to around 2004 when my injuries over the years made it very painful to continue to wrench full time.
I worked for independants, dealerships (always GM), self employed, and never even came close to $100,000 a year. The most I made was while working for myself. The best thing I ever did was ditch the automotive field, and start working on equipment. Less stress, and much better pay, as well as benefits, and working conditions.
Any young person I run across that is considering working as a mechanic/tech I always try to point them in the direction of equipment repair, as opposed to automotive repair, I was a slow learner about getting away from automotive, and of course didn't pay attention to my father that also started off in automoive repair, and later switched to fleet truck repair as his profession............
