We unexpectedly found ourselves at Turner Volkswagen on the second day of an 11-day summer road trip. We'd been towing a little pop-up trailer from Red Deer, Alberta and had our 2 Bernese mountain dogs with us when we ran into some car trouble outside of Kelowna. Google showed us that the nearest Volkswagen dealership was Turner Volkswagen so that's where we headed after our engine cooled down.
We had to park in front of their building because we were too long to fit anywhere else. If we had been home (or at our destination), I would have scheduled an appointment like a regular customer. But we were 8 hours into a 19-hour drive AND we were towing a little trailer AND we had two big winter-loving dogs with us. It was more of an emergency stop and we were just hoping that the dealership might somehow be able to squeeze us in.
I went in to ask the service desk if it'd be possible for someone to check our coolant level and that started a whole almost 24-hour journey with Turner.....
....a young guy named Shane came out with a jug of coolant to check the immediate situation. The level was fine but the dogs were quickly overheating in our car. I asked if we could bring them into the garage to cool down and he told us to take them into the actual waiting area. There was a dog bed in there along with a small bowl of water and it was a lot cooler than the garage.
While we dealt with the dogs, Shane dealt with our Tiguan. A mechanic came out to check something, then a second mechanic came out to look with him. They deposited our trailer in the garage and took our car back into the shop area. All afternoon they worked on our car in between the other regularly-scheduled work they already had to do. One of the employees brought out a huge bowl filled with fresh water so that our dogs could drink as much as they wanted. Another employee brought out some dog treats. Countless others stopped to pet our huge dirty dogs.
We waited and waited. Our phones died. Our dogs got as many pets as they could from as many people who were willing to pet them. Closing time came and they told us they would need to continue in the morning. Shane led us back to where our car was so that we could get what we needed for overnight (chargers, dog food, etc). Then we had to scramble to find pet-friendly lodging within walking distance and Shane stayed late to help us with all of it. Talk about going over and above!
It's never great to have car trouble on a vacation, but the people at Turner Volkswagen were absolute lifesavers. Literal lifesavers to our dogs and figurative lifesavers to us humans as our vacation took a completely different turn than expected. Thank you to the wonderful staff at Turner Volkswagen for their care for us, our dogs, and our vehicle. The Volkswagen owners in Kelowna are really lucky to have you!
- Becky A
