10 days in and it's on a truck back to the dealer

[cwfg]

So having only covered 150 miles and within 10 days of ownership, my car is on a truck headed back to Lotus. After starting the car this afternoon I was met with an "SRS Service Urgent" and "Reduced Acceleration" warnings and an airbag warning too. Then, when I shut the engine down, nothing happened for 10 seconds until the car spluttered to a stop. I fired it back up again to see if it was still there and this time I had to stall the car in 1st to shut the engine down. After "Lotus recovery" came out to inspect (The AA), they couldn't get any response from the OBD and couldn't resolve the issue. It did transpire that the car has a new throttle body installed and this was likely the cause of the inability to shut down the engine. Seems this car has had issues in the past. I've given the dealer 7 days to rectify or i'll be rejecting the car.

Not a great start.

 

[koflo]

Sorry to hear man. It’s a great car when it works but I’m also getting frustrated a little bit. I’ve had mine 4 weeks. One week was in the shop. Picked it up last Thursday. By Monday the check engine light came on. So back to the shop it goes… unfortunately said shop is over an hour away and they refuse to give loaners or uber credits or anything. So flatbed it is.

Hopefully your issues get sorted. But I’m right there with you, if I can’t then that 718 is calling my name.

 

[cwfg]

Thanks, and sorry to hear you've had troubles too. I really love the car and those 150 fault free miles were fantastic but i'm not definitely not interested in becoming the carer of a problem car. The dealer I bought from is 2.5 hours away, with next closest 1 hour away.

Best of luck with yours. I'll be looking at Aston Martin if this goes south.

 

[RoryBellows]

Best of luck with yours. I'll be looking at Aston Martin if this goes south.

Out of the pot and into the fire huh?

 

[cwfg]

Out of the pot and into the fire huh?

Possibly, but I have an AM dealer and service centre 6 miles away. If that were the same for Lotus I wouldn't mind as much.

 

[RoryBellows]

I was looking at a Vantage AMR with the dogleg 7 speed instead of the Emira but got scared off due to potential maintenance costs. I was also worried that I would have to baby it too much to really enjoy it.

 

[Orchardbike]

Sorry to hear of another owner with issues. Maybe we should get a group together and go on a hunger strike outside the offices in Hethel. I’d say blockade the entrance, but we don’t have any cars to block it with!

 

[idleuser]

I blew the 10amp fuse on the homelink and it gave me a SRS Urgent. Here's hoping it's something minor.

 

[geoffbland]

It did transpire that the car has a new throttle body installed and this was likely the cause of the inability to shut down the engine. Seems this car has had issues in the past. I've given the dealer 7 days to rectify or i'll be rejecting the car.

Which dealer, if you don't mind me asking - is this one of the Auto100 cars?

 

[cwfg]

No, not Auto100. Came from Endeavour Essex. Twist to the story, the faults have all cleared when unloading and the car is running as normal again. Hopefully just a sticky throttle body. Not sure why the airbag issue popped up at the same time but oddly, I found a story on Facebook of someone having the exact same symptoms as mine.

Second twist, I never personally checked the service history of the car as i was buying “approved” and i did ask if the servicing was up to date when buying and the manager said it was good. Having now checked the record, the first service was 6 months late. Waiting for Lotus to agree in writing it won’t affect warranty claims in the future or they will be buying it back / I’ll be rejecting.

 

[MiamiBlue]

Disappointing experience from an 'approved dealer'. Do you know the history of the car? Can't imagine many owners would skip the first years service. Possibly a rejected car that's been hanging around somewhere for an extended period?

 

[cwfg]

So finally got it back today. Not as quick as I’d have liked but given some of the stories I feel lucky at just over 2 weeks. Was trailered the 70 miles back to me at lotus’ cost, 2 year extended warranty added, plus some money back on the purchase price - happy days. Lotus HQ have also said that the delayed service will not affect the warranty as it came through their network - no idea why the first service was so late (17 months and 5k miles) but all seems well. Despite the early hiccup, I’m very happy to have the car back. Fingers crossed it behaves now.

On the dealer side, communication was poor and I had to keep chasing but in the grand scheme of things, not the end of the world. They worked it out in reasonable time.

 

[Lots_Of_Trouble]

No, not Auto100. Came from Endeavour Essex. Twist to the story, the faults have all cleared when unloading and the car is running as normal again. Hopefully just a sticky throttle body. Not sure why the airbag issue popped up at the same time but oddly, I found a story on Facebook of someone having the exact same symptoms as mine.

Second twist, I never personally checked the service history of the car as i was buying “approved” and i did ask if the servicing was up to date when buying and the manager said it was good. Having now checked the record, the first service was 6 months late. Waiting for Lotus to agree in writing it won’t affect warranty claims in the future or they will be buying it back / I’ll be rejecting.

I was looking at endeavours cars also,glad you mentioned this

 

[cwfg]

I was looking at endeavours cars also,glad you mentioned this

If you're thinking of buying from them, based on my experience I would say that they are a decent bunch but you are going to get the "Lotus" experience - maybe a little slow and not everything is as polished as you'd get from a bigger player. They seem to have a lot of stock compared to other dealers and these come direct from Lotus and as such, Endeavour don't appear to vet the cars as thoroughly themselves due to that fact - they just trust what Lotus is sending them which makes some sense I guess. There are no doubt some plagued cars kicking about so buying through a main dealer is always going to give you added protection if you are buying used. In summary, don't be put off buying from them, just do your homework on the car and expect Lotus levels of service. And don't forget your rights under the consumer protection act... it's your best friend when buying a used car from a dealer.