Another newbie just joined!

Good morning all, I bought my 8L S3 a few weeks ago now and have used this site anonymously a few times during my short tenure and it has proven invaluable in helping me understand my new toy already - therefore, I thought it was high time I joined the community! For anyone who's interested, I'm in Berkshire!

My car is a facelift 2001 Ming Blue/Black leather model with sunroof (no BOSE) - coming from convertibles before, a sunroof was more important to me than BOSE (I will only tinker with upgrading the sound system soon anyway). All usual S3 refinements otherwise.

I have previously had BMW's and Mercedes before the Audi - so far, so good.

As a matter of course, I threw a Warranty Direct warranty on the car and got it serviced shortly after buying it (including a drop and clean of the sump and pickup filter). It has also had a serious case of love thrown at it in terms of full pressure wash cleaning and polishing using Zymol (the hand applied variety) as well as complete clean of the leather seats (leather conditioner yet to be applied). Also, a new set of Bosch aerotwin flat wipers and new set of matching Grey 1300g carpet mats.

All running very nicely.

Let's hope the Audi experience is as long, loving and enjoyable as the BMW tenure (10years).
Looking forward to meeting like minded individuals over the coming weeks/months ahead.

Hi all, thanks for the warm welcome. She scrubs up well huh?

In terms of plans for what I want to do to the car -nothing. Well, apart from keep her as stock as possible (or at least stealth - so a hint of a stereo system upgrade there then) and possibly RS4 18" alloys! Nothing serious though - I'm too old for that nowadays!!

Now I have a Warranty Direct warranty in place, I plan to get things like the Syncro Mesh sorted (unless changed slowly, it crunches between 1st and 2nd) as well as possible cam-belt tensioner (0.5 sec slight rattle on cold start-up).

Other than that, I plan to keep it as stock as possible in the hope one day the Mk1 S3 will become a classic!

Sorry, just seen this... Car has just turned 98k, also needs the gearbox seeing too though as I find it crunches when I change into 2nd too quickly - and I don't race it. Local 'specialist' here wants £1k to overhaul it though, does that sound reasonable? That includes everything, labour, bearings, syncros for all gears etc.
I have also read about gearbox oil changes though - could this help or in reality is this a false economy?