Thanks to all on the forum. I learned a lot from lurking on the forum, and as a result, I picked up a 99.5 2.8 (frontrak, tip, sport, silver/onyx) this weekend. Put over 60 miles (albeit painfully slow break-in miles) on it on the first day. Wonderful car. Thanks guys, I look forward to being able to discuss A4 issues more intelligently with you all in the future, now that I have one.

FYI, I'm in SoCal and leased the car. It was supposedly $600 below invoice, but the dealer tacked on about $400 in "advertising" and "pre-delivery inspection" fees, so it ended up $200 below. I was too eager to get the car to play hardball on it...especially after I test drove it again. Oh well... Also FYI, 36 month lease, 57% residual, 3.2 money factor.

A money factor is a factor with the term, residual, and an APR built in to it. So you would take the price of the vehicle and multiply it by the money factor to get the monthly payment (w/o tax).

For example let's say your term is 48 months, your residual is 20%, and your APR is 8.5%. The money factor would be something like:
(48 * (20 / 100) * (8.5 / 100)) / 100, which equates to 0.00816. Now take that 0.00816 and multiply by the price of the vehicle, let's say $20000 and you get a monthly payment of: $163.20.

They (the bean counters) wanted to come up with a way to confuse us. But now I let the secret out... ;)

-Kuthair