Runde Auto Chat

Here are a couple of letters that we received recently from satisfied customers. Letter #1 addressed to Al Kloft (salesman at Runde Suzuki-Predriven in Hazel Green, WI)

Hi Al --- Happy New Year! Sorry I lost you on the phone yesterday---we had a power outage over here! I sure love my new car---thanks for all the sausage and deer sticks!!!! Love that stuff!!! Also---thanks again for being a great salesman and friend to buy a new vehicle from! Sam has gone to Runde's for new cars his whole life! I guess we are just really Chevy people!!!! Hope to do business with you for a long time!!!! - Deb Hesseling

Letter #2 addressed to Dan Rausch (Service Manager at our Manchester, IA location)

Dan Rausch and co-workers,

A "special" Thank You to all of you for operating a First Class business. I was highly impressed with the two gentlemen who brought the van back and drove my car home. I was impressed with your dealership in the way we were treated. This is your very best advertisement and I will be on your team around the Oelwein area. Thank You!! - Darlene Weishaar

Thanks to Deb and Darlene for your feedback. It means a great deal to us when we hear positive things back from our customers.

The newest addition to Runde's proud family of upstanding sales professionals is Kaylin Seffrood! Kaylin has great experience from other automotive shops and has now found her way to Runde's where she is enjoying selling new Chevrolet's. You'll find Kaylin always smiling, willing to help, and brightening up whichever room she may be in. We sat down with Kaylin to get to know more about her.

Where are you from? Monroe, WI.

Born and raised? Born and raised.

Where do you live now? We just bought a house in Hazel Green, Wisconsin. We moved there during the 4th of July Weekend.

What brought you to Hazel Green? Initially, my fiancé and I came to Hazel Green to work for Dubuque Harley Davidson so we would avoid the hour and a half drive to get there from Monroe. We tried to find a place that would let us live with our pets but didn't have much luck so we bought a house.

What made you want to work for Runde Chevrolet? I've always wanted to sell vehicles. I stopped in here one day to get warranty work on my truck and asked if you guys were hiring and it just happened that you were.

How do you like your experience so far? I love it.

What do you like to do around the Hazel Green Area? There isn't much to do... unfortunately with our hours we've been just mostly staying at home and playing with the pets or going back and forth to Monroe or Freeport, WI (where his family is from) to visit family. We go out to dinner and stuff like that as well.

What do you drive? An '08 Chevy Avalanche.

What's your favorite car? A '59 Chevy Parkwood. My dad has one, I love it.

What kind of pets do you have? A dog (boxer), a cat, and a hedgehog.

How did you come about getting the hedgehog? I saw an ad on Craigslist and I went about an hour to pick her up. It was totally worth it.

How old is she and what's her name? She's a year-and-a-half and she's named Eseme. I have no idea what it means, it's what the previous owners named her.

Do you... pet... hedgehogs? Yeah, you can. When she calms down and her quills are back she is fine to pet but she can puff up her quills anytime and that hurts. She's even drawn blood on my fiancé.

Do all the animals get along? The cat runs the house. She's the boss. You could say she's literally insane. One second she'll be loving you and the next second she'll claw at your arm.

Did you have her from a kitten? She just turned 10; I've only had her for about four years. I got her from the humane society and she was named "sweetheart". That doesn't quite fit her personality.

I hear your engaged, when's the wedding? 06/09/2012. We've got so much stuff done already; it kind of takes half the fun out of it.

Going to be a big wedding? It's going to be a very small ceremony and whoever shows up to the reception, shows up.

Big family on both of your sides? My family is small, I'm an only child. But Ryan's [Kaylin's fiancé] family is huge. We go over to his side of the family for Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter. And every time there's always over 25 people there.

Your fiancé works here now, how's he liking the gig? Yes, he just started here as a mechanic, he says he's loving it.

You guys watch any movies? We watch all kinds of movies. We just bought The Smurfs and we just watched that the other night.

What was the last theater movie you've seen? I think it was the last Transformers movie: Dark of the Moon.

What do you guys like to do? Any events you go to? During the summer months we ride our motorcycles and during the winter we ride our snowmobiles. Not really big partiers really. We are kind of in the middle of re-modeling the house.

What kind of bikes do you guys have? Right now we only have Ryan's Harley Road Glide. We have two of my dad’s bikes in our basement, a Road Glide and a Heritage and my friend has her Road glide and an Ultra-Classic stored there as well.

Where do you ride to? We've been up to Canada and to Georgia.

How long did that take? Both trips took about a week total, we took our time. The bike I road back then was a Buell Blast and I road it from Monroe to Sturgis Motorcycle Rally and anyone who knows that bike knows that's not a bike that you take that far.

Any future trips planned? I'd like to go to the Oregon/Washington area. Any trip outside of North America is fun.

Any plans for the holidays? It depends on what day, but yes. We'll be going to Rockford to Ryan’s Grandma's house for the biggest gathering with 25-30 people. We also go to Freeport to see his parents as well as to Monroe to see my family. We generally just eat dinner, talk and exchange gifts.

Why should customers come to see you when they want to buy a vehicle? I have a little different perspective on things since I'm a woman. And I always treat people right. They should come in and speak with me because like Runde's, they will like my attitude.

What's the strangest thing that ever happened to you? It was at the 105th anniversary for Harley Davidson in Milwaukee when I was living there working at the Harley dealership. We were so swamped that this lady who just bought a pair of boots came up and asked if we had any socks for sale, which we didn't. So she literally bought the socks from my feet. So I gave them to her and she gave me 10 dollars.

Ever play an instrument? I used to play the trombone for about two years.

What's your favorite band? I don't really have a favorite.

What's in the CD player of your car right now? I have six cd's in my car right now. I have Adel, Lincoln Park and I forget the rest.

Do you like Rap? As long as I can understand it, I like it.

So you don't like Rap? Not usually.

Favorite movie? That's tough... I love the Transformers movies; I like Over the Hedge and the Cars movies as well.

You said you had some service work done here. How did you like being a customer of Runde's? I loved it, it was the best service that I've ever gotten. Many of the dealerships I went to, just because I'm a girl, treated me like I don't know anything about vehicles and ignore me. It’s nice here that I'm not treated that way, I can chat with the guys here and be treated as an equal.

Welcome to the crew Kaylin! Stay tuned for an interview with Kaylin's Fiancé - Ryan Kerchner!

Tim Meyer of Dubuque is an old bird when it come to selling new Chevrolet vehicles.  ( By "old bird", we mean someone who has experience ... a multitude of experience).  He recently came on board at Runde's and has already had the pleasure of helping several wonderful people purchase new vehicles here. Tim has an extensive sales past and has a great appreciation for local business, arts and music. Sit down with Tim for two minutes and you will feel like he's been your lifelong friend. 

How long have you been in the car business? 26 years.

Are you familiar with automotive industry? Absolutely, I come from pretty humble beginnings. I’m from an automobile parts family from here in Dubuque Iowa. My father ran an auto parts company called Sieg Dubuque Company. So I’ve been fed and clothed by the automobile, almost all my life.

What is your favorite part about the business? My customers, definitely my customers. I have about four thousand sales in my career and maybe about 2,000 - 2,500 customers. I enjoy the customers very much.

What can a customer look forward to when they come to work with you? I think they would like my kind and polite approach to the automobile sales process and also my product knowledge for all different kinds of cars and trucks. I have financing and leasing backgrounds and schooling over the years in Michigan so I think that I would be a big help to them for calculating payments or making a car affordable and finding the right product.

Kind of the whole package in one then? Yeah, hopefully.

Do you have any kids? Yes I do. I adopted two children years ago. Jesse and Meghan and I have four wonderful grandchildren from my daughter Meghan.

Do you do a lot of activities with them? I have them over for Sunday dinners usually once a month or so.

Do you have any pets? I had a Black Lab, Golden Retriever named Shadow that my son gave to me. Unfortunately Shadow passed away in ’07 but I may get another pet, I love dogs and animals.

What are your past times or hobbies? I like art and music. Right now I have an art project going on working with photograph art. I have an old, old photograph of my grandmother in 1918 with hair down to her knees that I really appreciate and am trying to publish. Otherwise I enjoy poster art from the 60’s and 70’s. 

Who’s your favorite artist or where do you grab inspiration from? I really don’t have a favorite artist. My hero in life is Ray Davies. He’s the song writer for the old rock and roll band The Kinks. He is what I consider “the poet of our time”. So I would say that he would be one of my heroes.

What’s your favorite Chevy Vehicle? I’ve been eye-balling a new Silverado. I drove one previously as a demonstrator for 20 years or so, so that’s definitely my vehicle. I like to work around my home, so it’s a very versatile vehicle, four wheel drive. Pretty much a big part of my business, so a silver 2011 Silverado four wheel drive with a Z-71 package would be my perfect vehicle.

What’s your favorite restaurant in the Tri-State area? I like Marco’s and Mario’s. I do like some of the other restaurants, like down at the casino. I think it’s called the Wood Fire Grill. I do like that, they have a good Salmon there. I visit many different restaurants. The food’s great around the Dubuque area.

Apple or Microsoft? I like Microsoft. Well, I should correct myself there. I really like my Ipod and I like the new forward ways of the Apple Company. So, I probably like Apple a little better even though I initially said Microsoft because I’ve used just a regular HP computer for years. But I plan on going to Apple in the near future as soon as I sell a few more Chevrolet's.

Dogs or cats? Dogs, definitely.

Starbucks or Seattle’s best coffee? I like Starbucks quite a bit.

I know you’re an avid coffee drinker; do you have a favorite kind of roast? I kind of like a light Colombian coffee. I like to go to the Kwik Star Gas Station by K-Mart to buy my Coffee.

What’s your most memorable experience in a car or truck? My trip to California in 1970 after I got out of high school with two of my high school pals. We went to California for 3 months in a 1963 Volkswagen minibus with a roll back roof- that’s probably my most memorable experience in an automobile.

What did you guys end up doing there? Well, first we went to Omaha and stayed with some relatives and one of my friends. Then, we went to Albuquerque, New Mexico -- the first time I have ever seen the mountains and that was neat. We stopped at Colorado, going through the desert and heading to California. We traveled all the way from San Diego to San Francisco before I came home in November. Great experience.

Sounds like a very epic trip. It was. It was very expanding for my mind.

What’s your favorite movie? I’m not a real big movie buff but I did always like the old movie The Big Chill, and some of the movies of the 60’s. Kind of like Bullet, the car movie of Steve Mcqueen.

What’s in the CD player of your car right now? Pink Floyd. I like a lot of old English rock and roll from the 60’s and 70’s.

Do you consider the glass half empty or half full? Half full - definitely half full.

Where is the first place you will travel if you win the lottery? I’ve never been to Hawaii. I’d probably go to Europe too, after that.

Is there anything you’d like to say to your customers? Yes, I’d like to welcome them here to my new position at Runde Auto Group. My office is here right in the Runde Chevrolet building at the top of the hill in East Dubuque on Highway 35 North. I’m here everyday but Wednesdays and Sundays. I look forward to seeing you all!

You may recall that a few months back, Mardy Gilyard who is a rookie wide receiver for the St. Louis Rams bought a new Chevy Equinox from Runde Chevrolet. He purchased the Equinox for his mom, Trish, as a way of saying thanks for all of her love and support throughout the years. Mardy recently decided to buy another vehicles from Runde Chevrolet (he's admittedly a Chevy fan through and through). This time, he was buying it for himself. And his vehicle of choice was a Chevy Silverado

... a nice 4wd half-ton crew cab that should help him get around without troubles this winter.

Mark Fleege, his salesman, delivered the truck to Mardy in St. Louis. Mardy was just finishing up a Pepsi-sponsored autograph signing session when Mark arrived with the truck. The lady in the photo above is looking at Mardy's picture on the Pepsi can in her hands. How many people do you know who have their own Pepsi can? When Mardy saw Mark, his eyes lit up as he asked, "Where's my ride?"

Mardy signed the paperwork for his new truck. Mark had driven the new Silverado all the way from East Dubuque to St. Louis and he accidentally left his reading glasses in the center console of the truck. While Mardy was checking out the interior of the truck, he came across the glasses and couldn't resist putting them on. What happened next we wish we had a video of, but we are left with just a photo of Mardy with the glasses half-way down his nose as he said in an feeble old man's voice, "Excuse me sonny, can you help me? I'm looking to buy a truck. Can you please help me?"

We'd like to thank Mr. Gilyard for purchasing another vehicle from Runde Chevrolet and wish him the best as he concentrates on the remainder of the Ram's season. Anything could happen in that division and perhaps we'll be watching him in the NFL Playoffs a few months

Wishing everyone a safe and jubilant 4th of July weekend. If you don't have plans for the weekend yet, there's still time to make them. If you're just not the plannin' type ... well, we hear ya. It's casual.

 All four of the Runde Auto Group locations will be closed on Monday the 5th of July in honor of the National Holiday. We'll reopen again for business on Tuesday the 6th, but remember that you can access our inventory 24/7 at www.RundeAutoGroup.com