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I don't normally necessarily post about specific personal things. I don't directly talk about where I live and where I work. My experience yesterday having my car serviced prompts me to give props to the VW dealer where I have my car serviced.
When I bought my Volkswagon New Beetle, I knew that it was going to be inconvenient to get dealer service because the nearest dealer is in the Big City, Knoxville Tennessee. I wanted the car badly enough I was willing to make that sacrifice. I had an experience there yesterday that has shifted my firmly-held belief that all dealer service departments are populated entirely by lying thieving rat-bastard low-life scum.
My service experience at Harper Volkswagen in Knoxville, Tennessee has (somewhat) instilled me with some faith that dealership service departments can be competent, reliable sources of car maintenance.
I ended up having service done on my car over Christmas when my wife and I were out of town. I left the car at their service department and left instructions on what to work on. One of the items I mentioned was that the wipers squeaked. Well, apparently they replaced the wiper inserts, and they didn't squeak again.
However, in January, I was driving in slushy conditions and I went to clean salt off the windshield with the wipers, and they wouldn't go. They would work Ok when they were wet, but not if the windshield was at all dry. I assumed that the dealer had adjusted something (incorrectly).
Well, I talked to them Monday of this week, and on the phone they say "Yeah, we've had troubles with those wiper motors. If your car is still under warranty, the replacement is covered.". So I made a Wednesday appointment and brought the car in.
When I handed off the keys yesterday, I repeated what was up, and he just nodded and said they'd take care of it. I also mentioned that a few times, when the windshield wipers were running on itermittent, when the wipers parked, the instrument cluster would drop out (all the gauges drop to zero then pop back on). He nodded, and said that the wiper motor system share a common ground wire, and that sometimes happens. The fix is to run a separate ground wire for the instrument cluster. It takes an hour and a half, and is also covered as a warranty repair. So I asked them to please fix the wiper motor (assuming that was indeed the problem) but to not take the time for the instrument cluster wire; I'll just have that done when I have the next maintenance.
The estimated time for the wiper motor repair was an hour and a half. One hour and 40 minutes later, the service guy came into the waiting room and handed me the paperwork and said the car was outside ready to go. The paperwork explained the diagnostics, which was basically:
The car is a 2008 model with just a shade under 30,000 miles on it. The factory warranty goes for 4 years and 50,000 miles. The service department charged me nothing. Zero balance at the bottom of the form, just the diagnostic information. And THEY WASHED THE CAR before giving it back to me.
Now I still have a fundamental distrust of a system where the same people who manufacture something are the only ones who can provide proper maintainence on it; it creates financial incentives to not create good products. But I have to say that I really really like Harper Volkswagen; both their sales and service departments. (When car-shopping last June we did stop by there and check out their new diesel Jettas. We found their sales department keen and attentive but not pushy.) I do also know from other channels that they treat their employees very well. The service department isn't open on weekends, which is annoying for me but great for them. And I know because I've scheduled service there around the holidays the owners throw a huge sit-down dinner for all the staff right around Christmas (or maybe it was Thanksgiving).
And because I like pretty pictures of cars, here are a couple:
My vintage Beetle in the garage pushed up against the work bench because I worked on the engine over the weekend. The car in the foreground is my wife's car; her work is delayed today. The temp in the garage is about 40 degrees F; glad I got in a bunch of work over the weekend. 
My New Beetle (with newly working windshield wipers--yay!) out in the snow. 