I'm glad you've gotten things sorted out. As as side note, I was trying to quilt a quilt for my husband using Aurifil thread a few years ago. I kept having problems with the thread breaking and was so frustrated. I happened to mention it to a quilting friend at the guild meeting. She told me she had had that problem and had changed to a different spool of the same thread and had no problems after that. I went the next day and bought a new spool of Aurifil and had no problems. I finished quilting the quilt in a couple hours. Sometimes you just get a bad one.
Good for you for going to a auto parts store and ordering. You save yourself some money and supported a local business. Win-win!