SwissToni

Thanks - I have already replaced the battery (at my own expense), but old/new it never held more than 10 days charge. Like the intermittent cruise I took these as 'Lotus quirks' and was happy to live with them. The recent dealer service, not so much. I fired out some questions to the dealer and got the following responses: Q. Why were the clams replaced when Lotus directed that wiring checks were the most likely cause? A. Clams were removed to check the timing as previously discussed and this was required. (Note: no further explanation given). Q. Who did you discuss a goodwill payment with at Lotus - please give a point of contact so that I can discuss it with them. A. Assistance has been discussed with Lotus and declined. (Note: no further details given). Q. Who do you feel takes the majority of the blame for the unacceptable delay. A. Part of the delay I have led to believe (sic) was also due to awaiting parts. Other questions were also partly answered, as ever, most were ignored. The dealership have changed their line regarding goodwill payment and have stated that Lotus (who supposedly provided discounted parts according to a previous service manager) have point blank refused any goodwill. Despite a Full Main Dealer Service History on the car I am contacting Lotus to ask for their side as I cannot believe that they would be so shoddy. I am clearly not paying a main dealer for their superior diagnostic capabilities or customer service. Surely keeping the vehicle inside the network should give me some goodwill? I have spent thousands prior to this disaster with Lotus on servicing and now many thousands more. It is low mileage and was only just out of warranty when delivered to the dealer for repair. The fault is not due to an act of God, wear and tear or abuse. Why, if they are a quality brand, do they not stand by their product? The wiring loom was faulty and they won't even give me that for free.

Thanks YvoTuk! The garage has blamed Lotus UK for their lack of dealership support in terms of diagnostics so I thought that they could potentially be held partly responsible. The main problem with this is that I am not convinced that the dealer is being completely honest about who is to blame for the multiple failures - the garage, of course, blame Lotus for not sending test-parts (ECU) quickly and for not sending a technical rep. Well, there has been progress, of sorts. A week ago the garage were looking at the butterfly (throttle body - I assume) as the cause. I told customer services manager number 3 back in August that I suspected this, or the plug socket into it as a potential fault and that I discussed this with customer services manager 1 (it was similar to a boxster issue I had and the connector is apparently a repeat offender on multiple Lotus forums for certain fault codes similar to mine) but that customer services manager 1 dismissed this and I bowed to his technical experience. I have (a week later) been told by customer services manager 3 that I actually need a new engine harness loom. This is irritating. They were specifically told that the starting problems occurred after a heavy downpour and that the throttle body connector being cleaned and refitted briefly solved the problem. My bill, so far is £2435.52 + VAT for the catalyser repair and a service (that I assume is going to be completed after the repair). Plus £1380 + VAT for the investigation and loom repair. So about £5,000 in costs for parts, VAT and labour. Add in the year that it took them to find this fault and I am looking at about £4,000 in depreciation. However, this car has been supposedly fixed before, so I have limited faith. Either way, I am down at least £9,000 and a load more grey hairs. I am also concerned regarding the cats. The catalysers were originally replaced due to poor running, which will surely have affected the new catalysers also as the poor running has not been fixed for the last 4/5 months. Surely if they damaged the first set, the second set may also have been damaged? Or did they ever really need replacing? I am also unsure as to why they feel I should still be paying for the clam removal. The saga continues. Like Star Wars but with more anger and a more irritating dark side.

Never misfuelled. It actually spent most of its life (in my ownership) running on German Aral 102 Ron fuel. I always warmed the car up properly (I am an engineer by education) and it was never driven unsympathetically or tracked, by me. The car never wanted for anything. It was always serviced by main dealers (at considerable cost) and all advisories/recommendations were always completed. This is part of the reason why I am so angry. The car has never been out of the care of Lotus. Even the wheel refurb and new Pirelli tyres were done through them. The first 2 Lotus agents were average at best (one failed to get the recall parts for necessary work in the 3 weeks they had it and the other had the car for much longer than they should, although this was partly due to Lotus failing to supply headlights). But the current agent is dismal. Worse than hopeless, as indicated by the high turnover of staff and customer service managers. I am not an unrealistic bloke. I have owned 6 Alfas, 2 Land Rovers, a Ferrari and various 60s/70s British and Italian cars. I accept foibles and mediocre main dealer service as standard (little alternate option with newish cars). However, my treatment at the hands of this particular Lotus dealership (and Lotus' failure to grip them) has been unprecedented. My final actions will depend upon whether the car can be fixed by the dealership within the 12 months (4 weeks left). If it cannot, I will trailer it to a specialist and go into battle with the dealership and possibly Lotus. If it can be fixed, which currently seems unlikely, I will look at the bill, look at the discount for the garage's failures and look at the Lotus goodwill payment. If I am not satisfied (as I suspect is likely) I will take legal action against the dealership and possibly Lotus. I will also use the considerable free time that I now have to publicise my experience online and use whatever methods I can in order seek redress. The sad thing is that I really wanted to love Lotus and the car. I take an almost perverse pride in not buying cars based upon reliability and can laugh off most rattles and glitches. But I simply can't 'laugh off' this level of expense and incompetence.

Ok, a bit of good news. Clam off, exhausts replaced, car back together and running well. But then I hear nothing for another week and prod the garage (they rarely bother to contact me, I usually need 2 or 3 goes before I get a response). Apparently the poor running has "come back". It has been with the garage for almost a year now (11 months) and it has had a clam removed (unnecessary), about £2000 worth of exhausts replaced and........ And I am absolutely no closer to having a car that works. I have had some hugely expensive work carried out, but effectively I am no further from a year ago. Zero progress. The car has, of course depreciated a year in value, and I have had a remarkable amount of stress to deal with (at the same time as having to deal with leaving the armed forces). I am at a complete loss as to what is happening. Are they milking me for cash and all having a huge laugh at my expense? Can an authorised main dealer really not find a fault on a Toyota engined car in 11 months? Is it sat there and having nothing done whilst someone compiles an imaginary bill? I will give the garage until 12 months before naming and shaming them. I have copied Lotus customer services and their technical department in on my last emails (I have spoken to them before) but they have not contacted me either. But what can I do if it isn't fixed? Do I have to pay the bill and get it trailered to another dealer? Why doesn't Lotus help the dealer sort this out? By the way, I am on my third customer services manager (the first 2 were moved aside for whatever reason by the network). Fortunately I have copies of all of the emails and the timeline from start to finish of his whole sorry (but ongoing) episode. My restraint will not last much longer.

The garage has had a eureka moment it seems: "we removed the rear clam to check the timing which was found to be ok, we have carried out compression checks, check resistances on engine sensors and these were found to be ok, upon starting the car (with the clam removed) we were able to notice a small puff of smoke coming from the l/h manifold gasket we then dropped the exhaust to find that the r/h catalyst has broken up and blocked half of the exhaust system. This has been giving the running fault since we first had the car. It will need both R/H manifold/cat plus the other catalyst replacing then the vehicle put back together and tested to make sure that there is no further fault(the car does run and will rev with the cats now off the vehicle)." I have been quoted about £1600 (discounted total cost - including 4 hours labour & VAT) for this work and I am presuming that I am going to have to pay for the clam removal to investigate the timing (£1000) also. They may well also charge for the rest of the time that their diagnosticians failed to find the fault. I have asked them (about 4 times) to ask Lotus for a goodwill payment, but they have not yet come back with anything. If Lotus refuse to contribute significantly I am thinking about fitting a Larini manifold and exhaust. I know that this will be more expensive, but I don't have much faith in Lotus sourced parts (cat especially) and won't feel like buying their parts unless they are contributing. Any thoughts on the garage's diagnostic efforts and the failure to find this fault in almost 6 months would also be appreciated. Should I be paying to have the clam removed (this stumped the Lotus factory engineer when I contacted him - he did not think that this was a timing fault or that the clam needed removal).

Ok, so the clam came off (that's costing me close to a grand) and the timing is not at fault. So we are now over 5 months into this farce, back to square one with neither Lotus or the main dealer able to work out why my car is running rough. I can neither sell my car nor use it. Lotus seem to be disinterested and the main dealer seem to be utterly clueless. Without a doubt this is by far the worst experience I have had with any of the 30 odd cars I have owned. This includes 70s FIATs, Alfas and 80s Ferraris, elderly and new(ish) Porsches, Citroens and other British and German stuff. The car itself, Lotus UK and the dealer network have all let me down. I really don't know where to go next.

Just recovered the following email: We have had a lotus engineer in to look at the vehicle and to confirm our suspicions that the timing is out on the engine, after discussions the next logical step is to check the cam timing this will involve removing the rear clam to gain better access and to remove both the cam covers to check the timing marks to see how far the timing is out. Depending on how far the timing is out and what has moved will then determine the next step to enable the timing to be put back to normal. If the timing chain has jumped and we are not able to rectify it with the engine in place then we will have no choice but to remove the engine and remove the timing cover to investigate further. To give you an idea of cost to do the first stage of removing the clam and inspecting the timing we are looking at 7hrs labour (£595 +vat), should it end up resulting in the engine being removed and the timing cover taken off to inspect then we be looking at a start time of 30hrs labour(£2550 +vat). Hopefully if we are not looking at a component failure there shouldn’t be much in the way of parts to add to the prices above. (End). So, I could be looking at a minimum of a £3k bill to put a low mileage, fully main dealer serviced car (just out of warranty when given to the dealer) back on the road. My current intent is for the dealer to remove the clamshell and look at the problem. If they believe it is an engine out job I have requested that they contact Lotus to accept the bulk of the costs as a goodwill gesture and for the dealer to also make a goodwill gesture for messing me around for over 4 months. If this is not forthcoming I intend to take the car out of the main dealer network and get it sorted by an independent specialist. I will then be seeking legal and financial redress as well as documenting my experiences throughout wider social media (Facebook, Twitter etc). If anyone has any advice regarding a good specialist (South of England) or any general advice regarding my legal position, particularly in relation to Lotus and whether this problem indicates that my Evora was not fit for purpose etc.

Had a face to face with the main dealer service dept! It was promising, but I have lost so much faith in the car, the dealership and Lotus that they will need to pull something special out of the bag. The dealership admitted that 4 months to fix a car was unacceptable and accepted some of the blame, citing internal staff issues. The bloke speaking to me had only just taken over the lead and was pretty honest. They did also put some of the blame on Lotus who were (pre-Christmas) unresponsive and had refused to send a specialist to look at the car, despite the nature of the problem and the length of time it has been off road. The dealer believes (now) that it is the VVT that is causing the issue. The car idles smoothly, but still runs rough when throttle is applied. They are checking this assessment with Lotus before embarking on the repair as this is a clamshell-off job and 7 hours of labour (over £100 per hour including VAT, but plus parts). If and when it is fixed I will let you all know what the solution was, whether Lotus offered any goodwill gesture towards the solution and the final cost breakdown.

I am back in the UK next week, so might make a trip to the dealer first, but I like the Twitter idea (and your approach as to how to do it MHC) - many thanks guys!

The fault developed approx 6 months after the warranty ended. I did undo, clean and tighten the connectors in the engine bay, but the problem didn't (obviously) go away (I have owned a Sunbeam Alpine, a BL and a few Alfas and FIATs, and I am well used to suspect electronics/intermittent faults from the Lord of Darkness). So, like you TBD I was surprised at the ECU being fingered for the blame, but I am not a trained mechanic and these guys are Lotus mechanics. I know how difficult intermittent faults are to diagnose, but mine is non-starting and then running rough - is it really this difficult? 12 weeks and still no further advanced! What annoys me is that despite the length of time it has been broken, nobody from Lotus seems to be terribly concerned. I know I am just one customer, but if this doesn't end satisfactorily I am not going to just suck it up.

Thomas, it is with an authorised main dealer now. It has ONLY ever been worked on by Lotus authorised main agents. it has a full Lotus Service History, except it is now out of date because the authorised dealer (where it is now) cannot service it until the problem has been resolved. Buying it outside of the dealer network should not make that much of a difference surely? Especially if it has only been worked on by authorised Lotus dealers. Now, if the dealer is lying to me about the support that they are getting from Lotus, I may have a case against the authorised dealer that currently has my car, but it seems a bit harsh to say to them - are you lying to me and are you just staggeringly incompetent? I prefer to wait until I get the bill before escalating. I have had a bad experience in the past regarding a BMW Bike (bough in UK, but used/repaired in Gemany that refused to start, despite being only 3 months old). Both BMW UK and Germany gave the authorised dealers (in UK and Germany) a hard time, but that just made my relationship with the dealers even worse. Neither of the patent companies managed to sort the problem (it was eventually resolved after I myself found U.S. technical bulletin that identified a defective engine part that caused hot-starting failure in some bikes). The German garage that eventually fixed it (with the U.S. Technical bulletin) were clearly not happy to deal with my problem and were unhappy that I had gone to heir parent company. I have little faith therefore that Lotus UK will actually care and will have the power to do anything. Just to confirm - The car is with a UK Lotus dealership at the moment.

I bought it from an independent dealer who was selling it on from Caterham Cars. It was originally a manager's car. The V5 has Lotus as the first owner and Caterham as the second. It has a full main dealer history and has not been modified in any way by me. Thanks for the support, but it seems like Lotus is the main problem. The garage are effectively telling me that it is Lotus that aren't providing the support that is being asked for. For example not doing a site visit and not sending the test ECU until very late. What is really frustrating is that the car was epic until this point. After a very minor problem with the cruise was fixed it had been faultless. The fact that such a minor problem can take it off the road for 3 months and that a main dealer (supported , or not, by Lotus) has been unable to significantly advance the problem is a huge concern. I don't understand Lotus' lack of interest in sorting this out.

So it only took them 5 weeks, but Lotus have finally sent the test sensor to the dealers who have the car up and running again, but still running rough. So effectively I am back where I was in mid September. The service dept stated the following: The fault code currently stored is for the cam position sensor. We are now looking into this as it may well be picking up the fact the ECU is not specific for the car. Not quite sure exactly what this means. Do I have the wrong Lotus ECU (seems unlikely) or is it a Toyota ECU and they are saying that they still have no idea what is wrong with my car? Really, really unimpressed.

Lotus won't do a site visit, but are sending a test ECU. Garage have spent a number of days testing the cars diagnostics against another 2011 S that they have. Any one fancy running a sweepstake on the final bill?

Lotus offered up a software update and wiring checks. The garage have told me that these were carried out, but the car is still not running correctly. The garage have now requested a site visit by Lotus Technical. At this stage now I just want to get rid of the car at any price as it is looking like it either cannot be fixed, or it will be a ridiculously expensive fix (rewire etc). All for a car in which I have lost complete faith. I am dreading the bill as it stands so far as they have been working on it now for over 6 weeks. I usually prefer independent specialists, but because it is relatively new and has a fLsh it is with a main dealer. Should I have gone to a specialist, or even a Toyota dealer?