WagenWerks

On the good side of things, the price was excellent. I got want I needed for a fabulous price. I have no compliants on the workmanship to date. I can also say that he worked me in fairly quickly (2 days later) for being and quot;that close to Christmasand quot;. That is a nice touch.
On the down side is that he failed to mention before doing the repairs that he no longer takes credit card. I only pay for stuff with a CC. So there were a nubmer of blank stares as I tried to pay for the service at 4:30 (he closes at 4:30). I had no change to ammend the situation. I got away with paying with CC, but I feel lucky to have been able to do so.
Somehow, there must have been either no test drive before the repairs or a different person test drove before repairs than did after the repairs. The car was a smoothish driving mobile going in and a rattle-trap afterwards. I was unnerved after a 45min drive home from the shop. I was back the next day to get the rattle worked out. This time I had to wait in the shop for ~2.5 hours. There was nothing to do until they got to my car. The physical shop is a dirty, smelling, small, old shack that is unaccomodating to those who need to wait. There are 2 ragged chairs to sit on if you choose. The place is well heated! I was not cold.
They rotated the tires, front to back, and said the problem was the tires. It really did help to move the unbalanced tires to the back, but it did not remove the issue. I had to get all the tires rebalanced yet the next day to get the final solution. So after 3 days and 3 shop visits, I finally had a car I wanted to drive again. There must have been some function of the bad CV joint working in to the rotation of the tires and when the new joints were installed, the front tires did not run the same the new joints. So it is a lesson learned for myself.
That said, I got a and quot;freeand quot; tire rotation included in the repair!

First I will stated that I am aware of a "WagenWerks " listed on Angie's List with the address on 24th St in R.I. I am not aware that these have the same owner. They may or may not be the same. I am only writing about my reference at the named site.I have had the car running for ~ 4 months since the service was performed. There has not been any problems. Wagenwerks quote was $550 for a timing belt and water pump replacement on a 2003 VW Passat with 1.8T. I got a quote for the same service from the dealership in town. It would set me back $1350! I'll grant you they would drive me to and from work the day of service and have a nice lobby to wait in, but that is not worth the hassle of arranging a car ride from the "corner shop" in my view.The service was less than professional. No body was around to greet me or "take my order". I stood in a dirt "lobby" (the place used to be a service station) for ~3 min before a mechanic came in and asked if he could help. The owner was on his way back from somewhere and after ~20min of waiting, he arrived. We got my order in and I gave him my parts. I provided the 2 serpentine belts, coolant and thermostat. He was to get the timing belt and water pump. That was on a Fri. He promised to have the car fixed on Mon or perhaps Tues at the latest. I was back on Tues to pick it up. It was ready (I called to be sure, as I had to schedule the ride to the shop.) The owner was again not available. So my brother and I agreed to go to lunch first while we waited for the owner to return. An hour later, with a full stomach and I was out the door without any issues.In summary, the workmanship and price were stellar, super and so very good. The length of time to get the repair completed and the promptness of transaction was lower than I excepted. The physical site is cluttered and dirty. It is one of that places rightly called a "hole in the wall".As far as I am concerned, I got more than I paid for. I'd use them again as the need arises.