This has been posted elsewhere, so please excuse any reference to previous posts etc...
Apologies, this is a long post and I should issue a trigger warning for those who cannot see beyond a Lotus badge...
Today is the fourth happiest day of my Emira ownership. Following multiple delays and many promises that it'll be with you "soon", I was happy when it finally turned up on Jan 5th.
Once fully PPF'd and ceramic coated, the second time I was happy was when I collected it, and that's when things started to go downhill...
I cannot fault B&C, they had no option other than to follow the Lotus field engineer's recommendations to replace the battery and update the software. It soon became apparent on the drive home that this had not addressed the variety of errors that appeared on the dash, but it had also introduced a new problem, the heating is now stuck on full heat, regardless of the settings.
Following many emails and calls with Lotus Customer Care (the least said about them the better) I was offered three options:
As I said in a previous post when the issues started to appear...how can customer cars have so many common problems? It feels like early customers are doing the real-world testing, despite all the talk of a new production facility, QC at every step, thousands of laps of the test track and however many development cars racking up many miles on road tests, etc.
The third happiest day of this disappointing experience came when I finally received my refund. It was a long drawn-out process that never progressed unless I kicked Customer Care every step of the way. They have no idea what is going on in other departments and will tell you whatever they think you want to hear to get off the phone or answer emails in such a vague manner that they commit to nothing. From a customer's point of view, it appears that the left hand has no idea what the right hand is doing at Lotus Cars.
You would think that having eventually done the decent thing and paid out the invoice value of the car plus the detailing/PPF costs that I had incurred they'd be keen to collect the car...again, it took me kicking them to finally get this actioned. I fully expect that the car would still have been with me next month at this time if I hadn't pushed to get the car collected.
This brings us to today, the fourth happiest day. The car has finally been collected and I can put this disappointment behind me. It had been arranged that the car was going to be collected last Friday AM, but Customer Care didn't think to inform me that it had not been booked, leading to half a day stuck at home needlessly and me once again chasing Customer Care to find out what was going on.
This was my third Lotus bought from new and it will be my last. The previous two were not exactly high-quality items, they had their fair share of issues, some more serious than others, but I fell for the good looks of the Emira and the promises of much improved QC, but the reality of ownership is something that I could have happily done without. It will be interesting to see how things go once American customers start receiving their cars.
If Hethel hopes to compete and survive in the market that Lotus are positioning its products in they'd better up their game considerably before Geely decides that they can do better out of China.
As I type this, there are 38 Emira's on Autotrader, with a selection available under £80k and some of them haven't even been run in yet. Quite a few have been advertised for months and they're not exactly flying out of the showrooms, despite price reductions. Sure, there will be some flippers cars amongst them, who in my opinion deserve to take a financial hit, but still!
I can only hope that others enjoy a better experience than I have had and that their cars live up to the marketing hype.
Apologies, this is a long post and I should issue a trigger warning for those who cannot see beyond a Lotus badge...
Today is the fourth happiest day of my Emira ownership. Following multiple delays and many promises that it'll be with you "soon", I was happy when it finally turned up on Jan 5th.
Once fully PPF'd and ceramic coated, the second time I was happy was when I collected it, and that's when things started to go downhill...
Tracker not working- Fixed following a home visit by a Scorpion field engineer- Clicking/tapping noise from the dash and engine bay
- Mechanical noise on full lock
- Bubbled finish on the dash surround - B&C ordered a replacement (it was on backorder)
- Passenger side wind whistle over 50mph
- Door seals/carpet poor fit
- Random disconnects when using Android Auto
- Wiper speed issue - well documented, but still no fix
- Hill Start Assist error
- Dash vents for demisting side windows not working/weird ventilation issues generally
- ESC error, limp mode - more times than I care to remember over 727 miles
OSF brake pad issue- B&C replaced the pads and cleaned up the disc- Driver's door paint blisters that are getting worse - I'd hoped that this was a thing of the past with the alleged state-of-the-art paint facilities at Hethel, but obviously not
- HVAC stuck on full heat
- SOS System Service error
I cannot fault B&C, they had no option other than to follow the Lotus field engineer's recommendations to replace the battery and update the software. It soon became apparent on the drive home that this had not addressed the variety of errors that appeared on the dash, but it had also introduced a new problem, the heating is now stuck on full heat, regardless of the settings.
Following many emails and calls with Lotus Customer Care (the least said about them the better) I was offered three options:
- Keep trying to fix it, with no guarantee of a fix and no clear plan other than keep throwing parts/software at it and paint the door
- Get me into another Emira, a cancelled order not the same as my spec
- Reject the car and receive a refund
As I said in a previous post when the issues started to appear...how can customer cars have so many common problems? It feels like early customers are doing the real-world testing, despite all the talk of a new production facility, QC at every step, thousands of laps of the test track and however many development cars racking up many miles on road tests, etc.
The third happiest day of this disappointing experience came when I finally received my refund. It was a long drawn-out process that never progressed unless I kicked Customer Care every step of the way. They have no idea what is going on in other departments and will tell you whatever they think you want to hear to get off the phone or answer emails in such a vague manner that they commit to nothing. From a customer's point of view, it appears that the left hand has no idea what the right hand is doing at Lotus Cars.
You would think that having eventually done the decent thing and paid out the invoice value of the car plus the detailing/PPF costs that I had incurred they'd be keen to collect the car...again, it took me kicking them to finally get this actioned. I fully expect that the car would still have been with me next month at this time if I hadn't pushed to get the car collected.
This brings us to today, the fourth happiest day. The car has finally been collected and I can put this disappointment behind me. It had been arranged that the car was going to be collected last Friday AM, but Customer Care didn't think to inform me that it had not been booked, leading to half a day stuck at home needlessly and me once again chasing Customer Care to find out what was going on.
This was my third Lotus bought from new and it will be my last. The previous two were not exactly high-quality items, they had their fair share of issues, some more serious than others, but I fell for the good looks of the Emira and the promises of much improved QC, but the reality of ownership is something that I could have happily done without. It will be interesting to see how things go once American customers start receiving their cars.
If Hethel hopes to compete and survive in the market that Lotus are positioning its products in they'd better up their game considerably before Geely decides that they can do better out of China.
As I type this, there are 38 Emira's on Autotrader, with a selection available under £80k and some of them haven't even been run in yet. Quite a few have been advertised for months and they're not exactly flying out of the showrooms, despite price reductions. Sure, there will be some flippers cars amongst them, who in my opinion deserve to take a financial hit, but still!
I can only hope that others enjoy a better experience than I have had and that their cars live up to the marketing hype.
