Hi all,<br>I thought I'd share some more impressions of the 99.5 I got to finally see last night. But first I want to say that James R. did a great job with his post/pics from before. I'll try to keep it to things he didn't cover. So, I heard that my dealer had received a 99.5, so I made a trip to see what my future car will be like...<p>Very 1st impression: SEXY!<br>This is a nice car!<p>Anderson-Behl (San Jose, CA) had it sitting right in front. Light Silver 1.8TQS, Tip, All weather, sunroof, Bose, opal grey interior, cloth seats, and a leather wrapped steering wheel. This color is nice, really nice. All those who are worried that it will not be as nice as the Aluminum Silver, NO WORRY!<br>I had ordered a Silver 1.8TQMS with opal grey leatherette, Sport pak, All weather pak, sunroof, and trip cpu, so this "real" one is a close comparison for me. The opal grey with the Silver looks GREAT! Can't wait to see what the leatherette looks like. <br>My sales rep was busy with another customer, but he did give me the keys to "play" with it. You should have seen the grin on my face. I played with the radio,lights, back seat, trunk, everything. Once I calmed down I started looking for the "changes":<br>1. I'm not going to repeat the headlight/foglight issue 'cause I know it's been beaten to death, but it does make the car look good, real good.<br>2. I don't know why I didn't notice this on the test drive last month but the key for this car is kinda big. No big deal but just an observation.<br>3. The stock rims suck! I'm glad I got the sport pak, because these rims are not very attractive.<br>4. Sunroof: Alan and some others posted some sunroof observations, so I took a look at it. Seems okay to me. The sunroof dial/knob is similar to the 99 I test drove. The dial is "notched", but it doesn't have notch markers. (99 the same?) You turn it to the first notch and the sunroof opens about 3", then the next is another 2", and so on. I think I counted 10 notches to fully open. The tilt is very simple: The sunroof dial/knob has a dot painted on it, one little push at the dot...open tilt. Easy.<br>5. Ambient interior lighting. This is something I had a hard time understanding when I first heard about it. Amb what? Now it makes sense. There are two 1/8" diameter holes about 1" apart on the roof console (where the sunroof dial is and the front reading lights, etc.) In each I noticed what looked like an LED. They project a red light onto the console, very faint red light. So when your driving at night you can see the console. Very nice.<br>6. Climate Control: As can be seen in James' pics, the CC display window shrank. It now only shows the temp, fan speed, and fan symbol. All other controls are buttons. This model had the heated seats. If you look at James' pic you'll see blank spots on either side of the CC. This is where the heated seats controls are. The new things are: There is an off button, which is nice to have, an Econ button (?), and what I call the Audi Swoosh (an arrow looking like a Nike swoosh, possibly recirc button?).<br>7. Top of console: On the left side there were three bottons (from left to right): One for front fogs, one for back, and one blank one. Hazard triangle. Then the new cup holder, with the soft touch, Kinda lame but whatever.<p>Overall, I love it! My sales rep was still busy with the same customer so I couldn't ask him any questions/or talk about the changes.<p>So now the wait....I think I've tortured myself. It's harder now that I've sat in "the" car, and know what it's going to be like.<p>ED<br>99.5 1.8TQMS soon to be owner!<p>

Mind if I ask how much over invoice you paid? (NT)

I went their too after Steve S. said he saw some, I think the headlights look<br>awsome on the car wish I could afford to upgrade to them.<p>Marc<br>99 1.8tqms

This must be the same car that I saw last weekend. Only thing I immediately recognized as different was the headlight. And I must say that I liked the look of 99 better than 99.5. Without the wood trim on this 1.8T, I couldn't tell if anything really changed in interior either.

I have a 99.5 1.8TQ avant on order, and am very nervous about how the sport wheel will look. They said the wheel hub will be in dash color, adn with opal grey interior, this could be hideous. Does anybody know how this will be handled? My dealer knows not...<p>>>>>>Bernie<br>

The 99.5 I looked at had a leather wrapped sport steering wheel and the opal grey cloth interior. I too was worried about the aesthetics of this combo when I found out about the change. <p>It actually looks good, no where near "hideous". It's not an exact match between the dash and wheel, and on the good side it's not a light color. Of course it's grey, kinda dark grey though. I liked it, and actually didn't notice until I started thinking about the changes. Classy looking. Those Audi decorators know what their doing, and good thing because I would most certainly screw it up. :-)

mind telling me the sales name?