New car shopping adventures

A few weeks ago, the new car choices were narrowed down to the BMW 3 series. Our local dealer treated us well, but didn't have adequate stock for us (me) to actually decide the model of choice, though. We finally had time to go to a Minneapolis dealer this past weekend, and, after a test drive, decided what we wanted. Neither dealership actually has the car we want, of course. And when I called the sales rep here in town to tell him what we had decided, I was told he had recently quit. Within a few minutes of that call, the sales manager from Minneapolis called Mike to say they wanted a chance to bid against the local dealer for our business. What a crazy system - I guess times are tough in the auto business right now. We may have to wait for the 2009 cars (which cannot be priced or ordered yet), because it's unlikely they will be able to find what we want anywhere, and we are probably too late to influence any of the remaining 2008 car builds. We're not done with this process yet, obviously, but we're making progress. If only in having made a decision.