I did go by the dealer yesterday. They are saying still insisting no to a refund (which they have already said no to). However, they do seem to be willing to work with me to get me into a different machine (and not as MSRP). They were willing to let me go with the Pfaff 5.2 at the sales price (which I had played around on, curious about it). But sanity took hold of me, and I let them know that while a very lovely machine, it was more than I could do at this point. They then seem to want to direct me to what they want me to take. I was interested in looking at a BQ1350, because I felt on sale - that one would likely be the best fit for the features I am looking for. However, they only have the BQ950 and then the BQ2450 and up in the store. When I asked about the 1350 the other day, a sales person said they didn't have that one and that these were just coming out. The manager, however, told me that Brother directs which machines a dealer will get in their stores (and basically indicated they would not be getting that machine). I'm not buying that. I would think the Brother would want all machines in a store. Is she feeding me a line? Because basically she wanted me to go with the 950, even trade (said the 950 actually cost more than the DX5 but she'd do an even trade). I was not ready to make a that decision yesterday and told her so.
I did call Juki HQ yesterday, and got patched through to a technician. He was quite nice actually, though he has no ability to do anything having to do with refunds/returns. He asked which dealer I was working with, then said oh, they are usually a great dealer to work with. Asked more questions about my issues, did indicate that a 4 to 6 week wait on warranty work was not good, said he could send me a label to ship my machine directly to them for them to look at, no cost to me. I told him the machine was with the dealer, and I didn't know if they had already taken it to their center. He asked if I had pictures of the stitches, gave me his email address to send to. Also gave me a couple of other names up the ladder for complaints about my general unhappiness about the situation. I spoke with this gentleman before I went to the dealer.
The dealer said they were shipping the machine to Juki for Juki to go over it, they were not sending my machine to their local shop for the work. I did let the tech I spoke to at Juki know this, when I emailed him my stitch samples.
So this is on hold right now, until after Thanksgiving. I was not ready to make a snap decision on a machine the dealer was pushing me toward yesterday. I don't believe she was being straight with me about the models, I think she is considering where her best financial gain is and is going to push that direction as my only option. They are not willing to give me a refund right now. I have further up the chain at Juki to go yet. And I'm tired of feeling sick to my stomach over this whole thing.