Locate an Auto Repair Shop in Stratford, South Dakota

Stratford, SD Car Consumer Discussions

Re: . [fintail]

by magnette on Sun Aug 17 07:39:06 PDT 2008

I started out with the British shots, obviously, and I was fascinated because in several cases I have stayed in hotels that are in shot, ie Chester or Stratford, and in some this would have been back in the mid or late sixties, with my parents.. Also, the shots of London are great, because while many of the old buildings are still the same, there are loads of empty spaces where we now have skyscrapers, etc... The shots showing StPauls and Westminster show how dirty the buildings used to look then, before the great clean-up in the 80's, and with greater environmental control now they presumably won't get that black in future... Starting on the foreign shots now, and already finding strange cars in Italy, etc...

Re: . [fintail]

by magnette on Sat Aug 16 11:53:31 PDT 2008

Fintail, I've just started to browse through those pictures from the Cushman archive - what a collection... I think I'll spend hours looking at this lot - incidentally I've found a Benz fintail in Stratford on Avon, May 1961, and it's parked in front of a Wolseley 6/90, the larger relative of my MG Magnette....

Re: The not so rosy side of a limited number of dealerships [kdhspyder]

by rockylee on Wed Nov 29 01:16:57 PST 2006

If GM, and Ford, Chrysler, limited the number of dealership enterprises they would lose hundred-thousands in sales. Take my area here in the Panhandle, for instance. We have a couple of Toyota dealerships. One in Amarillo, and one in Pampa. Dumas, Dalhart, Stratford, Borger, Canyon, and of course several in Amarillo, are Big 3 dealerships. This is why you see alot more Big 3 cars on the road vs. foreign. Just my $0.02 on that. As far as Toyota's factory to dealer profit margin that boils down to having a superior product in the publics mind. It's the "perception" more than anything else that sells. You have to give their marketing teams credit for being able to pull off the brainwashing tactic of buying good reviews in Consumer Reports, good reviews in car magazines, etc. I'm not saying the product they have is junk but spending millions on a propaganda campaigns trying to "americanize" these foreign cars is sheer genius and the american public took the hook, line, and sinker, and ran to them. ;) Rocky

Re: AUDI A3 DASHPOD PROBLEM [iwcl]

by beeebeee on Fri Nov 03 08:59:27 PST 2006

The dealers must have been told to deny all knowledge of it, Listers of Stratford did the same...said mine was the first A3 they had seen with the problem...bollox. I complained to Audi GB and Audi DE, they don't give a toss. Now have problems with interior lights not going off and traction control not operating...I have more warning lights flashing at me than a space shuttle falling out of orbit...don't know where Audi get theIr reputation for quality from...they are just plain crap...will never have another one...VORSPRUNG DURCH TEKNIK...VERY DISAPPOINTING TECHNOLOGY!

300C 2005 modifications

by 581955 on Fri Feb 10 14:25:18 PST 2006

I picked up my 300C in May, 05. Since then I have done the following. Added Chrome tail light trim as well chrome fender lip molding,pillar post,rocker panels,rear deck lid,license plate bezel, E.G Classic Euro-Style grill,lower grill mesh inserts,sun-roof wind deflector,a rear spoiler from Sport-Wings,and MkW-33 custom 18" chrome rims. For the inside I have a 39 piece wood grain dash kit that also covers steering wheel and door inserts.(real sharp) Finally for performance I have the Borla Cat-Back system and a Volant cold air in-take. I love my car, but am I happy? No! I'm desperately looking for a chip that will tune for better gas mileage. I don't need more hp, what I have sometimes scares even me. When the car was stock I got 26.7mpg @65mph with changes, I get about 19.7mpg at that speed and I get 23.8 @80mph. Go figure. Anyone with a suggestion other than removing performance equipment? I want my cake and eat it too. Thanks to any one with a answer.

More from the future...

by lemko on Wed Jan 04 11:53:20 PST 2006

Life is bad for the majority of Americans, but a small minority have it good... Philadelphia, 4 January 2026, 2:45 PM: "Philadelphia is now an extremely ugly city. I just hate it. When I look outside my window, all I see are squat old buildings blackened by the soot of the old factories, all of which are now themselves rotting abandoned hulks. Pennsylvania cities are so ugly and Philadelphia is probably the absolute ugliest. From the 20-times-painted-over row houses to potholed streets to tacky, neon-wrapped storefronts and hookers, the Philadelphia of 2026 seems filthy down to the last bit. You can smell it. It smells of filth, it smells of disease, and it smells of death. You can feel it, know just what it is like. I realized why my girlfriend moved out of Philly in 2009 -- her apartment, which once had been in a "genteel" neighborhood, turned into a ghetto and the entire city became a giant cesspit. Trash and garbage is blowing all around the street. Broken beer bottles and overflowing garbage cans are abundant. Bums huddling in doorways beg for the price of a drink. Skinny, half-starved dogs bark at every passerby. Violence, pornography, and prostitution are everywhere. A couple of sleazeball cops are shaking down various scumbags. Enshrouded in a stagnant cloud of pollution, Philadelphia is now the ugliest place in this now ugliest of countries. It is now home to the thousands of displaced and disenfranchised former middle-class suburbanites who have flooded into the city in the past few years, living in their little corrugated metal shacks, trying to stay warm with their little fires. They huddle together in their torn coats, drinking the cheap liquor that will eventually destroy their kidneys and kill them. Yet depressing as it is, this future America holds a scary fascination for me. I stood for almost an hour watching those pathetic, ragged creatures. This country is now the ultimate degradation - the final graveyard of impossible dreams and unfulfilled expectations. How I hate it. It has become a cancer; a disease grown monstrously out of control; choking and killing off any hope of recovery and rejuvenation. What I found in this putrid-smelling place was disgusting. While there, I had to endure the hell of a filthy, dangerous existence. America is now the corrupt urban jungle at its grimmest. It robs the people of money, dignity and ultimately hope. They constantly experience random acts of violence, shooting massacres, brutal serial murders and rapes, wholesale robberies and looting. My stay in deindustrialized America led me to live fearfully. This was mainly due to the fact that I loathe violence. But, in 2026 America , I had to face it and deal with it daily. When I approached the police in my district, they offered no protection, so I was alone. At first this conflict led to injury to myself - the first time I walked out onto the street I was strangled almost to death! (But, I then learned how to take care of myself). I used to go back to my hotel room shaking inside. I never allowed anybody to face me, but I always stood sideways (to avoid direct attack). There were times when, seeing signs of impending violence, I had to steel myself, and calmly remove my tie (which could be used to choke me), my pens (which could be used to stab my eyes out) and watch (because I did not want it damaged, too!). I look from the window of my hotel room in the once grand Bellevue-Stratford Hotel. A homeless girl sleeps in a shop doorway across the street, in front of a boarded up store, covered in posters and graffiti. This whole downtown is full of boarded up stores, rotting posters of Wal-Mart ads layered on every surface, graffiti on every wall. It occurs to me that if the vacant buildings were opened for squatting the girl across the road, lying on the wet pavement could get a little warmth and rest. I am surprised how few of the buildings are being used as squats, since so many are empty, but I suppose the police make sure the property is not inhabited by the homeless. I have seen mothers and their children huddled in shop door ways, thin as the victims of Auschwitz, huddled together for comfort. I passed what I think may have been a squat a few days ago. Someone had kicked in the corner of a boarded up shop window, large enough for someone to crawl through. The stench of urine and feces coming from inside was wafting out into the street. All night long there is a continual stream of luxury cars speeding down the road, the drivers probably not wanting to slow down in this area of the city. Outside in the street I can hear shouting, smashing glass, and police sirens, even sporadic gunfire in the distance. All night long the screams and shouts, the fights on the pavement, the drunks and the drug addicts, the prostitutes and the homeless. My room is small, and the windows are large and dirty. I am on the eighth floor, and can see down into Broad Street below. Twice this week I have come back to the hotel to find two police cars parked outside the building, and the cops barring the metal door. Both times they were there to take some of the other 'guests' away with them for God know what reasons. The room I am in has pale blue walls, there are no bed frames, just yellowed mattresses on the floor with an equally yellowed pillow and sheet on each one. It has been quite warm at night, despite the rain, so it has not been uncomfortable. The room has a small bathroom too, which is a blessing, though it too is dirty and smells strongly of stale urine. In fact, the whole building reeks of stale sweat and urine, like a trough urinal at a bar. The doors have been pulled off the closet space, and are stacked against the wall. When I was first led up the stairs to the room, I first entered a large empty concrete storage space, with no furniture, and piles of garbage in the corners, which I mistakenly thought was my room for a few minutes. It had once been the lounge area of the hotel, and I couldn't see the small corridors running off from it. I was suitably relieved when the small elderly man who ran the place in the day followed me into the room, and then showed me down the hall to my actual room. The elevator in the building seems to work only when it wants to, so to avoid getting trapped in it I only used the stairs. There is a refrigerator in my room also, as yellowed and dingy as everything else. I only plugged it in once, and it made such a rattling noise, and gave off such a smell, that I unplugged it instantly. I also have a small black and white television which flickers and rolls. The name of the hotel has been carved into the metal on top. I don't watch the television much; it acts as a link to a world so unlike the one outside my window that it seems almost sick to turn it on. All night long there is the tramping up and down the stairs of the other guests, and I can hear the shouting matches between them late into the night. L