Not trying to hammer you - but I think the point that has been missing in all of this is that you were going into businesses that rely on actual regular customers that buy things on a regular basis to survive.
1-You didn't buy your car from them.
2-You hadn't bought any of your other cobbled together bits and pieces from them.
3-You were looking to spend an infantesimal amount of money.
4-They were likely never to see you again, as they'd never seen you before.
5-You were looking for something that you had very little idea exactly what it was or how long they were.
6-You were wanting them to spend their time locating an odd item in which you had no idea what a proper stock number for it would be.
And thus, you were wanting to send them on a wild goose chase to look for an item of very little value in which you were only willing to spend a small amount of funds to acquire that they in all likelyhood might not have had in the first place.
And you wanted them to jump through hoops just because you were snazzily dressed?
Sorry, but the business world - literally any business - doesn't operate and/or can't survive pandering to customers under those circumstances.
In the future it would be my advice to: purchase a proper kit from a shop and they'll in most likelyhood have your current and future interests in mind relative to helping you acquire pieces and parts (instead of having a hybrid in which they have no gain from its past or future), know EXACTLY what you're looking for including length and/or stock number of the part (and not some vague desription of some miscellaneous part on some mythical hybrid piece), realize that their time is worth money and is in most cases not worth the time if they spend it attempting to locate an obscure inexpensive bit or piece (because it's not the small bits that keep them in business, but the more expensive ones that have return business tied to them).
