[BiturboS4] New to list, a little long

[Al Adler]

Hi all,
    I've recently joined the ranks of S4 owners after having bought a
Silver 00 S4 Tip to replace my 98 A4 2.8. I have a few questions about
repair and chipping.
    First of all the car has a couple of problems( I got it fairly
cheap, so they were expected).  The tiptronic doesn't work unless you
hold the lever about halfway to the upshift position - based on the
fault codes pulled from a Vagcom it seems the Tip switch in the console
is busted - anyone seen this before?  It looks as if replacing the
switch will probably cure it but I won't know until its done. I know
someone will probably say "you should have bought the 6sp" - well, I
would have if I didn't live in the traffic hell hole of Northern VA
where I'm going to be spending many hours sitting in stop and go traffic
not going anywhere fast. That 1->2->3 back to stop gets really tedious.
    Second is I took the car in to get the wheels balanced and checked
for bends - the previous owner gave the rims a bad case of curb rash and
the car had some vibration. It turns out only one was actually bent so I
had that moved to the rear and things are much better. I'll be looking
for some OEM replacement rims so any suggestions for sources would be
appreciated. I allready have a set of OZ Superleggera's for later.. The
guy who did the balancing at Autothority said my tie rods have a
dangerous amount of play in them and need to be replaced ASAP. Is this
normal for 52k miles? And how much play is too much, and how do you test
for this? The car just passed a safety inspection and the steering feels
pretty good now that the bent wheel is in the back.
    I'm looking at chipping the car. I think I've looked at almost every
chip out there but I've narrowed the field to GIAC and APR based on the
chip selection ability. My wife may occasionally drive this and I don't
think she would be up to the sort of power a chip would add- stock will
be more than enough for her so I'd like the capability to switch back
and forth without opening the hood and pulling the brain. GIAC seems
pretty good, they also make the Tip chip that I'll probably add as well,
but their IBE chips are on backorder. APR has the better switching
capabilities but I hear they may cause more reliability problems in the
car. I test drove a car with the APR chip and around 4k rpm there was a
big dead spot , but I'm not sure if there wasn't something wrong with
the engine itself. I didn't buy that car - I can't say the Blue
alancantra worked with Santorin for me anyway.  I'm also looking for a
 spare ECU ("B" version) and a Tip ECU ("BS version") Anyone have any leads?
     The last question would be is there any must do maintenance one
would recommend? The car just exited the dealer maintenance period but I
don't have the records since I purchased the car from an Acura dealer of
all places. I did find out that it was being serviced at HBL(one of the
local Audi Dealers) and got to ask a few questions(original turbos for
example) but they won't release detailed records without written
permission from the previous owner whom I don't know. Sort of a catch
22. I'm thinking about getting all the fluids changed in the not too
distant future but I'm not sure what else may be a good idea.
     Anyone interested in a 98 A4 2.8 30v Tip  with only 28,000 miles?

thanks in advance
Al

00 S4 Tip Silver, Sport, Premium, Cold, Nav, Cell(but the guy lost it!!!)