my vocabulary now includes “pollen filter”

I have a 99 passat wagon. It has 87,000 miles. I took it in to the dealership (Boston VW) a few weeks ago for the 90,000 miles service, which I “thought” was a “major” service that included the timing belt and the rest of the general maintenance. Anyway, I paid them $1,100 and drove off thinking my car had been serviced. The next week-end it rained and the rear passenger side foot well filled up with water. When we got home, we bailed out the car and tried to dry it out….. I was amazed how much water was in the car. Then we got on-line and realized – thanks to you all – that this was likely the result of a dirty pollen filter. I naively thought that VW would cover the disaster, since I had just had it in to be serviced, but that was foolish. VW customer “care” said that they do not check the pollen filter at 90,000 – they do it at 80,000, so they claimed that it was my fault. I tried to argue that a car should NOT fill up with water because of dirty filter and if it did the the mechanic should check it every 10,000. I tried to get her to split the bill, but that was a no…. she was cold. I must say that I would not want to have her job!!! Anyway, I had my car towed to the dealership and after waiting a week for them to find a transmission control module – they replaced the module along with the pollen filter housing. This bill was $2,448. I must say I feel like a fool…. I will never buy a VW again……………………………