How could this have happened? Dealers: Is it easy to make this mistake when sending in an order? How long into the order should my dealership have caught this mistake?

Waiting for it to get here before determining that it was the wrong E seems beyond belief!! :evil:

Man, that sucks. Sounds like your dealer f*cked you over. I wanted a SSM fwd DX w/ a manual transmission. Went to the dealer, bought it and drove it home.

I am now in the process of calling outside my area. One dealership told me that they could order the vehicle but they wouldn't know if they could get it and would have to wait to see if it is allocated to their dealership. This doesn't make sense!! He also told me that they could order me a 2004 and it would be ready in October (How would he know if they can't be for sure that it will be allocated to them?). I also thought that the 2004 models wouldn't be ready until December at the earliest. Very frustrating.

Ouch - hope I don't have your experience :oops:
but
I ordered an '04 3 weeks ago and was told to expect an Oct delivery :wink:

the way I understood it the dealer had an 'allocation' to order (x) Elements. He called the day he'd submitted my order under his allocation.

In the mean time he's monitoring inventories for what I wanted and will swap dealer to dealer if he can find what I want sooner. This jives with what I've experienced in other car buys in the past...for "limited availability" vehicles. {early Miata, first year Mini Cooper S, 92 VW convert, 91 Audi GT Coupe}

Good luck on the rebound