Newsletter No.065 Website update, Concours pictures, CLK GTR special.
Newsletter Number 65
20th October 2003
Hello and welcome to another newsletter.
Hello again. We are now a family of five! Jessie Green was born on the 10th of October. Mother and baby are both doing fine. Thanks to all the customers and friends who have passed on there congratulations.
In this newsletter we have some important information for all our Newsletter subscribers. We have fixed one of the major bugs in the website. Also we have all the pictures from the latest MBCACT Concours, and the other usual features.
One of the Newsletters subscribers has requested some more technical articles and I am working on these, hopefully by the next Newsletter I will have some more info on the great Unleaded Fuel and Ethanol debate for you.
Thanks, John Green.
Website administration.
Regular newsletter readers will know that back in April we launched the new version of our website after 3 months of trialling it. As I do all of the content myself, we had a hold up when I hurt my back and found that editing the site was rather painful, as I could not sit for long periods of time. On the whole I have been very happy with how things have gone, however the drop down box's on the subscription page have never been right. At long last we have this fixed.
The idea of collecting this information when you subscribed was so that we could send you offers of parts on special and inform you of cars that we are dismantling that are relevant to your car. No point telling you that we have Roundie and Finnie tailshaft couplings on special if you own a later model car, is there?
We can also use the system to let people know what cars we have for sale by only letting those who are looking for a certain model know, rather than sending an e-mail to everybody. We are aware that junk e-mail is a major hassle these days and wish to be as responsible as possible, whilst at the same time promoting our business.
However, to make this all work, we need all the Newsletter Subscribers to log on and check/correct their details. Due to the drop down boxes not being configured correctly when you first subscribed we may be sending subscribers the wrong information.
To do this please follow these steps:
- Open up another window by pressing Control and "N" at the same time. This allows you to read the instructions at the same time as changing your details.
- On the right hand side of the page you will see several boxes, the lowest one has "Member Login" on it. Type in your e-mail address and password and then click "Login". If you don't know your password, don't type anything into the password box and click "Login". The system will e-mail you a reminder about your password instantly, so go and check your mail and then follow the instructions again.
- Once you are logged in, you should see some blue text in the Login box that says ""Edit my details". Click on the blue text.
- Please check all your details and then go to the bottom of the page where you will find five fields that allow us to know what sort of cars you own and what sort of cars you would like to own. Each field has a "drop down" box with multiple choices. You can select two cars that you would like to know about parts for and three cars that you dream about owning. If you select any of these, you will receive information on cars we have for sale that suit your needs and on specials that we have that suit your car. As mentioned above, the idea is that we don't send the wrong information out to the wrong people.
- Finally there are four boxes that need to have ticks in them if you want to be notified about the Newsletter, New arrivals for sale, New arrivals for dismantling, and Specials. If you select all the right things and tick all the right boxes, we will only notify you about New arrivals and specials that are relevant to your car, or the car that you would like to own!
- Click save (lower left hand corner of the screen) and you are done.
Here is a description of some of the other site features:
Search Function. The site has an excellent Search function. The red button on the top left hand margin of the home page will get you there. For example, to find the article on "Tyre size calculators" that was in one of the old newsletters just type it in and hit Search. You could also try looking for the article on the 350SL with the Wankel engine. When we have the online shop up and going, you will be able to search for very specific things by excluding the Newsletters. For example, if you type in380SE as a Search subject, you get over 40 hits. To narrow the Search, select from the drop down menu if you want to search: Special, cars for Sale, Parts for sale, etc,etc.
Look for parts. You can look for parts that suit your car in our Specials and Recycled pages by simply clicking on the chassis style that suits your car. For example, if you have a W123 series car you need to keep an eye on this page and on this page. We are still adding stock to these pages so check back regularly.
Mercedes-Benz Club of the ACT 28th Annual Concours
I have still not managed to do a report on this wonder weekend but have uploaded all the images. If you click here you can see them. For those of you who attended, I have included a shot of all the tables from the dinner on Saturday night.
As you can see, lots of people having lots of fun! If you are not a Mercedes-Benz Car Club member you can click here to find your nearest Mercedes-Benz Car Club.
Funny of the week.
As this newsletter goes all around the world I need to point out that these funnies are not intended to be racist. I know we all sound different and that I am sure our overseas customers think us Aussie's talk funny.....
An Italian, a Scotsman and a Chinese fellow are hired at a construction site.
The foreman points out a huge pile of sand and says to the Italian guy, "You're in charge of sweeping." To the Scotsman he says, "You're in charge of shoveling." And to the Chinese guy he says, "You're in charge of
supplies." "Now I have to leave for a little while, I expect you guys to make a big dent in that pile of sand."
When the foreman returns, the pile is untouched. He asks the Italian, "Why didn't you sweep any of it?" The Italian replies, "I hava no broom. You saida to the Chinese afella that he wasa ina charge ofa supplies, but he hasa disappeared and I nocouldafinda him nowhere."
Then the foreman asks the Scotsman, "And you, I thought I told you to shovel this pile." The Scotsman replies, "Aye, ye did lad, boot ah couldnay get meself a shoovel! Ye left th' Chinese laddie in charge of supplies, boot
ahcouldnay fin' him."
The foreman is real angry now and storms off toward the pile of sand to look for the Chinese guy. Just then. the Chinese guy leaps out from behind the pile of sand and yells, "SUPPLIES!!"
Think Irish accents when reading this one...
Paddy and Mick worked together in the factory and were both laid off. At the unemployment office, Paddy was asked his occupation..."panty stitcher....I stitch de elastic in ladies panties" he replied. Being unskilled labour, Paddy was given 100 euros a week. Mick replied 'diesel fitter', and since this is skilled work he was given 200 euros
a week. When Paddy found out Mick was getting 100 euros a week more than him he was furious. He stormed back into the unemployment office and demanded to know why his mate was getting more pay.
The clerk explained that panty stitching is unskilled work, whereas diesel fitting was skilled work. 'What skill???' yelled Paddy....'I sew the elastic on the panties. Mick puts them over his head and says 'yep, diesel fitter'.
Cars for dismantling
The W109 300SEL 3.5 has been sold. It was way too good to be dismantled! It went through rego without too much trouble and now has a very proud new owner. We have a W123 250 and a W126 380SE coming next week.
Links of the week.
Firstly, I need to apologize for not uploading the PowerPoint presentation that was mentioned in the last newsletter. I have now fixed this and if you click here you can download a PowerPoint presentation that was sent to me by a customer of a car they wanted to buy...... Check out what the speedo reads to! You can also download the PowerPoint presentation that I did last November showing the new workshop.
The link of the week is the official Mercedes-Benz Australia website. If you go there you can learn about the following:
- Over One Million A Class's have been made in the last 6 years. This is quite some achievement given the rocky start they had with the moose test. In September, they released the new W169 A class at the Frankfurt Motor show, however we will not see it here in Australia until early next year.
- Have a read of there article on Ethanol in Petrol! We field a lot of questions about this topic and the use of Unleaded fuels in our Service Department. Maybe one day I will find time to do some research on this and put it in the newsletter.
- You might also like to check out the film "7 years later", it is an interesting film that you could win a trip to South Africa if you send in your comments, or even get onto the set of the next Mercedes-Benz "blockbuster"
Three new cars have arrived for sale and one has gone. The white C180 was sold before I had it listed on the website. It has been replaced by a 1997 C180 in Midnight Blue with beautiful grey MB-tex. We also have a rare late model 190E and a 560SEC that have just arrived.
High body panel 190E's are rare, as the 180E was released in early 1991 at $45450.00, which was just under the luxury car tax limit. At the same time a 190E cost $63200.00. For the extra $18000.00 you got ABS brakes, Electric windows, a 2.0lt engine and a MB-tex interior as standard.
Click here to see all the cars for sale.
Cars sold:
C180 1995 model 121000kms
The following cars have recently arrived for sale:
C180 1997model 103000kmsAlso in stock we have:
Collection of three factory Stretch Mercedes-Benz's
So that's it for another newsletter. Hope you liked what you saw. If you have any ideas or want to contribute any articles, pictures or other material please e-mail me here. Also, don't forget that you can check out the old newsletters here
Thanks, John Green.
