** Final Update on OP and Post #12 **
I'm reluctant to keep this thread alive any longer but need to update it one last time to give the shop a lot of credit. I'll also use the opportunity to correct a couple of mistaken assumptions.
The first correction may be trivial but will give you a more accurate view of what kind of owner and customer I am, for better or worse. I read the manual cover-to-cover when the car was new and then put it away (except when the "check engine" light came on) for the first 40K miles while the dealer provided regular maintenance. From 40-75K I had it out all the time, showing it to various shops at every oil change. "Make sure you use this kind of oil!" "Please do everything on this list!" We gradually learned that the independent shops down the street and the national chains aren't really qualified to work on diesels even for basic maintenance. Only after we started going to this VW shop and felt confident that they were taking good care of the car did I once again stop consulting the manual regularly. Though overlooking the timing belt is the costlier mistake, I'm even more embarrassed about getting the mileage interval wrong for oil changes--I at least have to know how often to schedule appointments and take the car to the shop and I'm red-faced about not having this right.
The other mistaken assumption is that we never had a conversation with the VW shop about our expectations and their service. We did have such conversations, more than once, especially at first. I was as open with them as I have been in this forum about how little I know about cars, and we let them know we wanted someone to give the car all the service it needed to keep it safe and prolong its life; they in turn assured us they know these cars inside out, have been servicing them for decades with only ASE mechanics including a VW-trained TDI specialist, and so we could trust them to keep the TDI well-maintained.
I love that people on this forum are so passionately involved with their cars, but also, the more I think about it, I make no apologies for trusting specialists with the routine maintenance of mine. We trust a cardiologist to know what drug is needed and how often--and even to recommend a timely operation to prevent a heart attack--without bothering to verify independently how the drug should be administered or which conditions call for such an operation. We trust a school teacher to know the best timing and method to teach our kids trigonometry without bothering to learn trigonometry or pedagogical theory ourselves. We only need to know the school calendar and the date of our next medical exam. Like auto mechanics, every profession has basic standards and responsibilities and each individual customer/patient/student doesn't need to have a conversation or written contract specifying what these professional standards are. For auto mechanics, this includes recommending preventive maintenance based on a car's mileage, a basic professional responsibility. The General Manager at our VW shop said yesterday that he agrees and aspires to give every customer mileage-appropriate service and safety recommendations even on a first visit when the shop knows nothing about the car's history. He commented that a surprisingly large number of customers ignore or defer these service recommendations, but he acknowledged we have never been such a customer and have always acted on the shop's recommendations.
Though we don't like overpaying for car care, safety, longevity, and convenience are all more important for us than cost. Some people have commented that you get what you pay for, implying I guess that by saving money at an independent shop we sacrificed the better service of a dealer. But in a thread from a few years ago one member described this shop as being as arrogant and expensive as the dealer, and yesterday I talked on the phone with another local TDIClub member interested in buying the car--he said he knows this shop well and thinks it's more expensive than the dealer. (You tell me: is $1200-1300 as much as, or more than, dealers' current prices for a timing belt change?) I suppose our situation does show you get what you pay for but in the opposite way than most of us expected: we've been paying top dollar for car care and so now the shop is standing behind its work and taking responsibility for its lapses.
The shop's General Manager and co-owner is taking a position similar to fnj2 and nexus665, who had the courage to take a minority view. He called me yesterday to say he had just reviewed all of our service records in their system and was alarmed to see they had missed not only the timing belt but also some other safety warnings. He's relieved the outcome wasn't worse, i.e. that no one was injured. Because they "dropped the ball" and "feel a little bit of responsibility," they would like us now to pay only what we would have paid to change the timing belt if they had reminded us in time. In other words, our repair cost just dropped from $4150 to $1400. They will absorb all the costs of fixing or replacing the cylinder head and whatever else is needed for a complete rebuild with warranty (pistons, lifters, rollers, water pump, serpentine belt, EGR valve, cleaned intake manifold--I'm certainly forgetting and misremembering things). Sometimes you get what you pay for.
I am passionate about my own specialization and sometimes get befuddled and exasperated by some students' lack of basic knowledge or skills or concern for the subject, so it was good for me to be on the opposite end of such a relationship in this thread. With only once exception, I appreciated all of the posts, including those taking me to task (because I deserved it). The exception of course was the post with the misogynistic slur, not appropriate in any kind of forum. (I just looked back and can't find it now. Did the admin delete it? If so, good!)
Though I'm signing off from this thread, it looks like we'll still be TDI owners so I'll be lurking in other threads and look forward to running into some of you. This is a great community--I just wish I'd discovered it 10 years ago.
With apologies for the logorrhea,
Orlando
