Well, I ordered my 2000 A4 1.8TQM this weekend from Scottsdale Audi. I posted last week with concerns about reliability (after reading all the complaints on this board). I assumed, and heard back from you, that this was enthusiasts demanding perfection, but still loving the cars they owned.

So I went in, negotiated a fair price and ordered my car. I did not find Scottsdale Audi hard to deal with at all, and they were much more flexible on the price than I expected considering the general lack of competition in the Phoenix metro area (absence of competition, I should say).

My Volcano Black 1.8 Manual Quattro should be in between the end of September and November, depending on whether they can change a car already in production for me. Options are:
Ecru/Onyx Leatherette
Sunroof
Bose Premium + 6-disc changer
Sport Package

Debated over the Xenon and sideguard airbags, but in the absence of pricing information, and this being my first Audi, decided to keep the cost down. Maybe on my S6 in 5 years :)

Now comes the most difficult part: 1) waiting for the car to come in, 2) not getting fired for sitting on a4.org all day long dreaming of my car, and 3) figuring out which chip to buy!

Anyway, just wanted to say thanks to those who posted and gave me suggestions on the Phoenix market and the Audi brand in general. I look forward to being a life-long Audi customer, they just need to get me the car!

Thanks,
Rick

the wait is going to kill you and yes ... you probably will get fired not only for daydreaming but pointing your browser home to a4.org and spending hours searching the archives for chip info/comparisons. :)

my waiting experience ...
the environment where i work is 'open'. no cube walls no partitions etc. desks are arranged whereever they'll fit in that one large room. to my right i have a large cork board for all to see. on that board i tacked the s4 brochure, the a4 brochure, the apr hp/torque curve and misc.
the wait was just under 3months. my desktop background is STILL another person's volcano 1.8t sport.
the wait became unendurable the 3rd month. during that month my coworkers decided to give me their impression as to why it still had not arrived. "oh, they probably sold it to someone else", "they're using your car for test drives", "are you sure they put the order in?", "is that your a4 parked outside?", "the boat probably sank" etc etc. i have cruel coworkers.

yea .. i got pretty pathetic. hehe

go out and buy the september issue of these mags.
car & driver(s4 comparison), max speed(tt and german tuners) and european car(100 years of audi).
it'll help sate some of your yearnings. :)


99.5 volcano 1.8tqms apr
-jasyn