By all means I think I would travel to the other shop. You can make the trip, eat lunch out and maybe visit a nice fabric shop and still have money left over to buy more fabric. I travel about 2 1/2 hrs to my dealer who, by the way, sold me one that was a floor model and guess what.... I got a nice discount for taking the floor model.. While it's true a floor model may not have been used very much, it is still "used". If this is a good machine you're buying you won't have to be taking it in very often. I have mine serviced about every two years and I enjoy my day when I do. Good Luck.