The Tale of a Lightbulb and Public Profanity.

A few weeks ago, a headlight went out on my Passat. Pain in the ass sure, but whatever, no big deal. So I headed up AutoZone, looked up the replacement bulb, and plunked down $16 for a new one. Cut to 2 hours later, after reading blogs and watching YouTube videos on how to change the damn thing I realized I may not be cut out for this. Shit, my guy card takes a serious hit when I can’t change a freaking headlight.

Then I did what most guys would do. I ignored it. Because, the prospect of taking my car in for service ranks right up there with a stop by the DMV. You see, it never quite works out how you think it should. But this week, I bucked up, called the dealer and found that for $40 and 45 minutes, my car would stop looking like it was winking. I made the appointment for yesterday. 8AM. Let’s do this.

I arrived on time (10 minutes late), and was greeted by a young, attractive service rep. I’m pretty sure she was in to me. I mean, she smiled, welcomed me to Jim Ellis, and walked me in to service area. No way everyone gets that kind of treatment. But I digress. She introduced me to Dave, and that’s when things got dicey. Dave worked up the order, and then walked outside to look at the car. When he came back, we had the following exchange:

Dave: Mr. Hatfield, um, we have an issue. You see, your headlights are part of an upgrade package – they’re Xenon headlights. And the bulb is 140 dollars by itself.

Me: (Silence. Dumbstruck).

Dave: And, well, it’s a pretty time intensive repair – like three hours.

Me: (again, dumbstrucked).

Dave: The total cost is 390 dollars.

Me: (mouth agape). Fuck.

Me: Uh, sorry I said that.

Dave: No, that was an appropriate response.

So, there you have it. The cost to replace my headlight bulb is $390. Yeah, I'll call around to other shops to get quotes, but I still can't get over the asshats at VW and the fact that they designed a car that requires you to remove the bumper to change the headlight. 

I’m just going to see how long I can go without driving at night.

One more time, with feeling. Fuck.