That is (in a good way) surprising that the T-Reg has been such a great family vehicle. Sadly, you couldn't touch anything like that in today's market for less than like $70K so hanging on seems like the right move. I actually loved the service experience at my VW dealer as well. The lady who sold me my GTI had owned a few and currently drove a GLI, she was a total V-dub enthusiast and was all stoked that a youngster like me wanted the manual.
Service wise my guy had a K04 GTI and they actually performed my Unitronic tune at the dealer and promised to honor the warranty, which I never needed in 40K miles of ownership. Other than the free oil changes and such, I never needed anything else.
Maybe VW dealers are actually less bad than many.
I have 4K miles on the 86 now, I changed the oil at home at 1,200, I think I'll actually try out my local 'yota spot in the coming weeks for the free oil change included in the first two years of ownership
