Hey guys,
Many of you provided excellent advice as I was hunting for my first Lotus. Roughly three weeks ago I purchased a barely used 2010 White Evora. When it arrived the car had just over 3,000 miles. It was a single owner car t...
Hey guys,
Many of you provided excellent advice as I was hunting for my first Lotus. Roughly three weeks ago I purchased a barely used 2010 White Evora. When it arrived the car had just over 3,000 miles. It was a single owner car that barely got driven and had always been completely babied. For example, it never got driven in the rain.
Prior to purchasing the car I looked through the service records and I could see that none of the common 2010 Evora issues / service bulletins had been discovered and addressed.
With less than 2 months of warranty remaining I knew I was going to need to really go through the car with a fine tooth comb to find the issues and get them fixed under warranty.
After driving the car for a week I created a list of a dozen things that needed addressed and took the car to my local Lotus dealership, Park Place LTD. After only having the car for a week it was REALLY tough to let it go.
After being in the shop for almost two weeks, I got it back tonight! Man, I missed it.
Here's the set of things that got fixed:
1. Leather on the dash was bubbling in a couple of places - they replaced it.
2. Shifter boot had come loose - they said it was missing all the clips, so they installed clips and glued it
3. Top of shifter knob was loose and the logo was rotated - they tightened it down and straightened the logo.
4. Driver's side door wasn't aligned and would slightly shift when you shut the door - fixed
5. When washing the car, water would get in trunk and door jams - they did the water leak service bulletin
6. Clutch gets soft when car gets hot - service bulletin that puts heat shield on clutch line
7. Slight play in steering wheel - service bulletin that put a larger spacer in the steering column
I was super excited to get these things fixed.
Here's the set of things they didn't fix with a justification:
1. Clutch is making a noise just as it is fully released - The service manager said it was consistent with a problem with the throw-out bearing. I'm obviously really worried about the clutch going out after my warranty expired and asked his advice. He said that Lotus would consider paying for the repair if my dealership dissembled the car and found a problem but that they wouldn't pay if it was dissembled and we found that there wasn't anything wrong. So it's a bit of a gamble.
2. Headlight's have dust / slight fogging inside - he said that Lotus is not only not paying for the delamination issues, they've also now officially said that they will no longer pay for internal condensation and fogging. They claim that neither affects the performance of the headlight. I'm pretty sure having light shine through a fogged / condensation covered lens would in fact affect the performance.
3. Sometimes tough to downshift into first gear - it doesn't seem related to the clutch issue. The dealership ordered a couple of new shifter cables that they'll install during another visit.
4. Breaks sometimes squeal - I was told that this is just the way these brakes are. It's not a huge deal though I feel slightly silly when pulling up at an intersection in such a nice car with squealing brakes.
5. Engine lurches at low speeds - It has only happen a couple of times and I can't reproduce the problem but I had a couple instances where the car kind of bucked in first or second gear when rolling slowly. The service manager couldn't get it to do it and attributed it to driving style. :)
Out of all the things that didn't get fixed, the first three are the ones I remain concerned about. The other's aren't a huge deal. For the clutch and headlights, I'm not quite sure how to proceed. I'm told that there's a local Lotus service / warranty center that we can call. Has anyone done this? What would you do on the clutch? Gamble and have the dealership disassemble the car or just drive it and hope the clutch doesn't go out?
I know the list
