I came across this child safety seat tutorial video and like it a lot. There’s nothing entertaining here … it’s just S-A-F-E-T-Y. Straightforward, plain and simple, but it’s also pretty comprehensive. It demonstrates how to install a front facing type of car seat. I have installed a car seat or two in my day and I really never thought to put your full weight on the seat or base like the demonstrator does in the video. I have pressed down on the seats and bases in an effort to get them tight and synched up, but seeing the video it makes sense and I’ll probably try to tighten up my car seats when I go home tonight. I know that a lot of car sales people take car seats for granted, but it is really not something that shouldn’t be overlooked. In my opinion, a lot of car salespersons would benefit from viewing a child [...]

Marty Frank is first and foremost a Cubs fan.  He’s also one of the truly dedicated worker who spends his days prepping and cleaning all of the new vehicles that drive off the Runde Chevrolet lot here in East Dubuque. We interrupted Marty’s work for a few minutes to have him answer a couple of our questions. RAC: What do you do here at Runde’s?   MF: I work in the wash rack cleaning up all of the new cars, keeping Lenny out of trouble, and trying to convert him to being a Cubs fan. How long have you worked here? Three years and still going. What is your favorite part about working here? Any time they bring in pizza for us or put together potluck dinners and that kind of stuff, the food is just so good. Are you originally from the area? Yeah, but I moved here from Santa Cruz, CA when I [...]

John Riley, who manages our Chevy Sales Department, received the following email message from the husband of Kathie Thor this week.  Hi John: Here’s a few photos for your scrap book. Thanks for all your help with Kathie’s Christmas Surprise. She had no idea I had made a deal with you for a new vehicle. There was a lot of excitement at the Thor household Christmas morning. Thanks again, Randy Randy Thor of Cuba City, WI surprised his better half, Kathie Thor, with a sophisticated new set of wheels.  He grabbed some quick photos of Kathie beside her new ride (my guess is that he didn’t have to ask her to smile).  Kathie was completely caught off guard by the new Chevy Equinox that was waiting for her at home and the Thor’s had a very Merry X-Mas.  [...]

We sat down for a few minutes and did a customer interview with Dan Schaefer from Dubuque, IA.   Dan serves in the Air Force and is now the proud owner of a Chevy Malibu and he bought the car from Runde PreDriven while he was on paid leave from his base in Texas! Enjoy the video!  

Customers often come in after Christmas and ask our Runde Chevrolet Sales Staff how their Christmas celebration was or what they did during the holidays.  Well you don’t have to wonder what our Salesmen did this year.  This year our sales staff put in a lot of extra rehearsal hours during the holidays trying to get this Christmas dance just right and we shot this video on location up at the North Pole.   We hope everyone out there has a safe & happy holiday season!!!

The holiday season is here and spirits are up for most especially at the East Dubuque Giving Tree organization. It’s a time of reflection and giving thanks as they say. But when is the last time you really thought about how you could give back to those who aren’t as fortunate as yourself? I would like to introduce to you the Runde’s Raising Awareness Series. The goal of this series is to bring awareness to various non-profit organizations around the Tri-State area that provide truly selfless services for those in need of help. These organizations run mainly through donations and volunteer work and are almost always in need of contributions or further assistance. We ask only one thing if nothing else is gained through this series: that you realize and acknowledge that these good deeds are being done in our very own community. Our first organization is The City of East Dubuque:  

Here’s what some recent customers of Runde Auto Group has to say about their experiences at Runde Auto Group – a dealership located near Dubuque. We had shopped around a lot for a vehicle.  Of all the dealerships we visited, Runde Chevrolet treated us the best and worked the hardest for us.  I have already recommended this dealership to other people.  Runde was a very pleasant experience for purchasing a car. The whole time was very professional, caring and easy people to work with through the whole process. Steve Kness – Pearl City, IL   First class operation.  Enjoy doing business with them in all departments. John Roeder – Roeder Implement Inc. – Dubuque, IA    I am very pleased with my purchase from Runde Chevrolet. Gary Bonnet [...]

Mike Lawler worked for Runde’s full-time while he went to East Dubuque high school.  After graduating, Mike went off to college, but he still comes back to work here when he comes back home.  While Mike was here for the Thanksgiving weekend, we took a few minutes to chat with him and find out what college life is like. RAC: Where are you going to college? ML: Western Illinois University — It’s about two and a half hours away. RAC: And do you have your own car? ML: Yeah, a 2000 Cavalier Z24. RAC: Nice.  Aluminum wheels?  Air Conditioning?  Cruise Control? ML: Yes sir. RAC: Sounds like a great car!  Do you like college so far? You’re going to the school in Macomb, IL right? ML: Yeah the school’s nice.  Macomb’s a smaller town – I think it’s about 20,000 people.   RAC: Runde’s sells a lot of vehicles to people from Macomb.  Do you [...]

Happy Thanksgiving From Runde Auto Group! It’s that time of year again where we give thanks… thanks to the people we love, thanks for all of the nice things we have in life, and thanks to the ones who guided our lives in the right direction. (I remember in the fourth grade at St. Anthony elementary school in Dubuque, Tim Earle and I were fighting on the playground during recess — probably over who got to be quaterback next or something like that…  Our teacher, Mrs. Jane Stanton, had witnessed this and when we came back inside — she made us both stand up in from of the whole class and hug each other.  Sounds weird to be thankful for a teacher who used public humiliation as a deterrent, but I went to school with Tim for 12 years and I don’t [...]

The 2010 Ford Raptor was build for the true off-road enthusiast.  Check out this video that shows the dynamic capabilities of the truck.  Jamal Hameedi, chief engineer of the Ford SVT comments on the truck’s ability to jump (the truck was actually built to jump) and he also touches on the trucks Hill Descent Mode.   Runde Auto Group’s customer, Brian Hauber, took this footage of his new 2010 Ford Raptor going down a hill in the Hill Descent Mode. I think it’s safe to say that he loves his new Raptor so far.     If you’d like to check out a new Ford truck in person, please give our sales staff at our Ford store a call at 888-927-2630. If you’d like to check out our entire inventory, go to www.RundeAutoGroup.com — Or call us at 866-735-5200.

For those of you who think that social media is just a fad that will disappear in the years to come, well … uhhh … you might have another thing coming.  In the car business you often get a mixture of old school thought vs. new school.   Yesterday, this really seemed really apparent when we asked one of our senior salesmen to help provide us with a customer of his that we could interview for the blog.  His response was: “No.  Actually, I can’t wait ’til that thing (the blog) goes away.”  In the past couple years, social media has become what it is and at Runde’s we have tried to embrace it for the positive.  We run a good business and word of mouth has always been one of the cheapest and best forms of advertising.  So we figure, we’ll interview customers and ask them what they thought of their experience at Runde’s.  It’s [...]

Aside from the 1965 Shelby Mustang GT350 and the very first 2009 Chevrolet Corvette ZR1 ever made, Jay Leno has lots of toys that do things that you probably never even thought were possible … especially his new 3D scanner. What if I told you that I could clone almost any object under the size of about a yard? Better yet, what if I told you that I could, without any sort of assembly, make the cloned object fully functional as soon as I cloned it? “Bust out the straight-jacket and lock him away?” you say?  Well, FYI, all of this is possible and is actually happening at Jay Leno’s garage. Jay has this nifty little scanner called a Faro 3D Scanner which will scan an object based on thousands of points and create a 3D model of it on your computer. From there, the Dimension 3D Printer takes the image data given to it by the scan [...]

The twenty-sixth of October with kids roaming all over. Main Street was all cluttered with folk. Coming down the street was a royal fleet and the diesel was-a-blowing smoke. Yeah them smokies were holding back the traffic. They even had a cop on a bike. Those Jacksons were-a-dancing for quite a spell. And they were showing an abundance of heart. “Cause we gotta great big convoy, rocking through the night. Yeah we gotta great big convoy, ain’t she a beautiful sight? Come on an’ join our convoy, ain’t nothing gonna git in our way. We’re gonna roll this trucking convoy, cross the USA. Convoy.” Well that’s what it seemed like.  Ok.  [...]

Saw this today and thought I’d post it — it’s cute.  Just Madonna out for a daily drive with Clive Owen.   Granted I was never really much of a Madonna fan anyway so when I saw this, I was like Oh, ok.  I mean I like the songs and she has stayed on top of the music industry for a long time so she does command and deserve respect.  But I’m not so sure that she still deserves all the hype she gets.   I’d take Cyndi Lauper or Tori Amos any day of the month over Madonna.  She was just never at the top of my a-list … my apologies to any Material Girls out there who may be offended.  Please feel free to leave a comment if I touched a sore nerve or upset the Zen balance in your material world — just don’t remain Silent After all These Years — let it out, because [...]

Here is just a sample of how a few recent customers perceive Runde Auto Group.  Check out these Customer Testimonials …   “All employees were very friendly and willing to help.  We were very much pleased with our experience with Runde.” John Mitchell Dubuque, IA   “I purchased a Chevy Colorado from Alan Kloft,  I’ve needed it repaired twice since the purchase.  Both times I have dealt with Pat Timmerman… All I can say about the sale and service experiences is AWESOME!  You guys are GREAT!  Thanks!”  Dave Fangman Dubuque, IA   “I’ve been buying trucks from you guys for eight or ten years.  I don’t do this very often but this is an exception. I just wanted to say that you guys went above and beyond the call of duty while servicing my truck. I had a truck that needed a scratch taken out. When I came in with it [...]

Ford made a dream come true for some legally blind people as they were give the chance to be driving again thanks to a large open area and modern technology. You are the next big street racer. You get thrilled by the speed and feel of it all – going high speeds, feeling and hearing the motor sing to you as you treat it with all the gasoline your foot can put down. One day you wake up, and you can’t see anything. The doctors all tell you that you are blind from what appears to be some head trauma you experienced the other night. You lose your licence and can no longer drive. Suddenly, your world turns upside down, the things that you loved so dearly [...]

Have you ever tried jump starting a vehicle?  If not, then keep reading to find out how to do it.  The video below will give you a walk through on how to safely and successfully jump start a car or truck. You’re ready to go home from your best friend’s bridal shower in a city 200 miles away from you. It’s about 8pm and you figure that you should make it home before midnight.  You think, “Wow, I had tons of fun and it was great to see Callie again!”  You hop in the car and turn the key to your ignition. “rrrrrurrrr  rrrruuuurr??? putt putt fizzle butt”  You find your car is just not cooperating with you as it will not turn over. “Fantastic,”  you think to yourself,   “It’s only me and [...]

According to the title, this blog post is about fuel cell vehicles.  Not sure what they are?  Ok.  Fine, then let’s start with a conversational detour. Ever wish someone would walk up to you and hand you the keys to a new vehicle? The closest I’ve ever come to hearing about something like this, I previously mentioned when I wrote the anecdote about Doug in our Field of Dreams blog post last year. There’s also that scene from Pay it Forward, where some guy hands Jay Mohr the keys to his new Jaguar S-Type car in an effort to … you guessed it … pay it forward. I was looking at GM’s Project Driveway a little today and I checked it out to see if I might qualify to drive a new state-of-the-art Chevy Equinox fuel cell vehicle. Project Driveway is the first large-scale market test of fuel cell vehicles with real drivers in [...]

We’ve got a new staff member one coming on-board at Runde Auto Group– Jenna Schneider. We definitely hired a lively one. She seems to liven up the crew. Let’s get to know her a little better.   What do you do here at Runde’s? I take pictures and videos of cars. How long have you been here? It’s been just a couple of weeks now. Are you originally from the area? Yep. I’m from Menominee Il. Where did you go to school? I went to East Dubuque high school. What kind of past-times and hobbies do you partake in? I play volleyball, basketball and softball I also like to swim and boat. What is your favorite hang-out spot [...]

ZR1 Corvette vs. The Boeing F/A-18 Super Hornet strike fighter jet Blue Devil vs. Blue Angel $117,000 vs. $25,000,000 Motor City’s best vs. The U.S. Navy’s finest Click the play button below to find out who wins … You’ve got a car with a top speed of 205 miles per hour and a jet plane with a top speed of 1190 miles per hour.  Granted, the Blue Angel was going to win … even with a head start, the jet fighter was still going to win.  But it sure made for a great photo opportunity and it was great publicity for the new Corvette ZR1.

Hello Gary, can you tell me a little bit about the event? This is the single largest event in Dubuque. This is the 24th annual year that Radio Dubuque has been involved with the 3rd of July show. It is a combination air-show and fireworks display. The Air Force has estimated our crowd at, well, let’s just say in the tens of thousands. Where is the show located? The central location for the show is down by the Dubuque lock and dam on 1860 Hawthorne St. The firework show starts at 9:45 and typically lasts around 25-30 minutes. The air show runs from about 6:00-8:15.    A bunch of awesome aircraft in one location? [...]

It was this big … honest!   Tom Erickson is a customer of ours from Coon Rapids, MN.   We gave him a Runde hat (now his lucky fishing hat) when he purchased a vehicle from us earlier this year. Today he emailed us the photo above attached to this message:  “Hey Tim (Runde) … I have a new good luck fishing hat!!! – Tom Erickson” Anyone who has spent any time fishing up in Minnesota or Northern Wisconsin can attest to how large some of these fish grow to.  Check out the video below from Minnesota of a Muskie swimming with a giant northern pike in its mouth.  The first time my brother-in-law showed me this video, I was like, “Holy guacamole”.   And I still say the [...]

This past week we had the pleasure of having a customer come in who owns this beautiful 1968 Chevy Camaro. It’s not too often that you see a Camaro of this year in such good shape. While he was here, we let him check out the new 2010 Camaro to get a sense of what the grandchild of his car looks like and how it handles. We all know that cars can’t talk without the aid of Hollywood’s magic.   However, I wonder what the conversation would be like if these two could have an actual car-to-car verbal exchange.   Take a look at these two together:

Ford Syncing is definitely a new thing.  With all of the technology that has been heaped on our generation over the past few years, sometimes it’s hard to keep up with all of the awesome new “stuff”.  He’s that guy. The one that nearly avoids getting into an accident because he’s on his cell phone. In honesty, YOU are probably that guy or girl sometimes yourself — I know I am occasionally. Safety is very important while driving.  I’m quite confident that using a cell phone and texting while driving won’t exactly put a smile on your parents’ faces. It’s a good thing that now you can do those distracting activities you find yourself doing, time and time again, without putting your, or any other, life at danger thanks to Ford Syncing. Released in over twelve of the 2008 Ford, Lincoln and Mercury vehicles, the Ford Sync lets those who opt for the system to wirelessly [...]

I recently had the chance to sit down with Rodney and Sherry Schroeder after they purchased a vehicle from our Chevrolet dealership. What did you guys do here today? We just purchased a Chevy Trailblazer. What led you to get that vehicle? Well, we had a van and we were looking for a seven-passenger vehicle — something different than a van. Do you have a big family? Well, we have three kids. How old are your kids and what do they do?  They are twelve, eleven and six and all of them are going to school. And what they do is drive us nuts (laughs). Are they excited for the new vehicle? Ohhhh yes. So what are you planning to do with the vehicle? Take the kids to the various sports activities, mostly for general use.