Ask the dealer about the inner tie rods.
There are inner tie rods, and outer tie rods.
The inner tie rods are connected together as one unit, I think it is called a steering rack, or something like that.
Replacing the inner tie rods is a lot more expensive than the outer tie rods, and probably why the dealer is trying to avoid this swap/fix.
Here is Youtube vid on checking for a bad inner tie rod on a Jetta.
YouTube - Inner Tie Rod Test