Ian Lockwood

Just digging around for some touch up paint for my car, which has a paint code of C93 (Starlight Black). Seems the options are few and far between, but the B93 equivalent (also called Starlight Black) is easy to get hold of. Would I be right to think that the "C" means it's three stage rather than two? I can't see why else Lotus would use a different code. Any tips where to get the right one?

Thanks Dave! 👍

Booking mine in for this, is it sensible to get anything else done at the same time (water pump?) Not sure what/if anything else gets driven by the belt to be honest?

Thanks Mario, TBH I'm going with the Bosch option as it's less than half the price of the Toyota part and should be the exact same spec. I'd be suspicious of an unknown brand, but Bosch should be pretty good stuff. My current filter looks very similar to your photo!

Time to replace my V6S air filter, the Lotus price is about £70 apparently! Given that it is a Toyota-branded part anyway, is there any reason not to use this aftermarket equivalent? https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Air-Filter-C26003-Mann-17801AD010-1780131120-A132E6324S-Top-Quality-Replacement-/332236032975 Or this perhaps: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/F026400188-BOSCH-AIR-FILTER-INSERT-S0188-FILTERS-AIR-BRAND-NEW-GENUINE-PART-/381656475982?_trksid=p2141725.m3641.l6368 Is there any particular benefit to the K&N option (these are oiled right? Not keen on that...) https://www.carparts4less.co.uk/search/508820891 I'm keen to avoid adding more noise in case it trips a limit on track somewhere (I can squeeze under for Bedford but it's close).

I think at least one of the ads could do with a bit of an update (watch through the ad below)!

Wow. I can't believe you ran Touring on track! It's so unresponsive and the traction control is almost "anti-track-driving". Plus you're limited to 6800 revs. I bet you have virtually no rear brake pads left either... Race mode all the way (still eats rear pads though). Never out of Sport on the road either. The throttle lag in Touring is so bad it hurts. I get that Lotus wanted a "safety first" setting, but it seems odd to me that they've got something as sophisticated as Race mode at the other end of the scale but couldn't engineer a safe zone without destroying the throttle response. I wonder if it's any different in later cars (mine is a 2013)?

Just to add on the reliability front, I know a guy who took his GT4 on a European road trip. Gearbox died, he got great customer service, but a couple of months later his car is still at the Porsche dealer waiting to be fixed, they are being very vague about the cause of failure (he suspects the issue linked earlier in the thread). So great to have a big dealer network in that situation, but if they can't fix the problem... Add in all those engine issues over the years (flame-grilled GT3 anyone?) and I just don't buy the reliability guff. I'll take a Japanese engine every time if you're asking me for the best combo of quality and performance!

OK, that's reassuring. Need to dig out the bit of paper with settings on. Tyre temperatures were 30psi hot all round. Rebound was 10 clicks out all round, low/high compression 10 clicks out on the front, 8 clicks out on the rear. Doesn't mean much without the other settings I know! Didn't want to ring Hoffmans and bother them TBH as it's not desperate, but did cc. Chris Randall (@Randy) for when he has time to look.

Noticed after my first trackday with ZZRs at Silverstone the other month that the outer shoulders looked to be quite worn and hot in comparison to the rest of the tyre. You can see in these photos how the shoulders have taken some punishment. My car has 3-way Nitrons fitted by Chris Randall at Hoffmans, who of course did the geo too. Should I be looking to get a bit of extra camber to ease the wear on the shoulders? I do drive the car on the road quite a bit, so don't want to go too far with track settings. cc. @Randy

Here you go Chris: http://www.dashmount.co.uk/index.php?page=shop.product_details&flypage=ilvm_fly_showroom_mall.tpl&product_id=1321&category_id=187&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=55&vmcchk=1&Itemid=55

Couldn't get them in the right size mate, so went for ZZRs. Haven't used them yet!

Happy days so far - cleared the code, had a 12 mile run out including a blast down a dual carriageway to get a bit of temperature into the engine, didn't return. Hopefully a spurious one caused by sitting for a while after being washed and then going out on a cold damp day perhaps?

Haven't taken it out again yet, will try clearing and see if it comes back. I presume getting at the sensors is an undertray-off exercise? Never needed to do it before.

Got an EML the other day, plugged the OBDII reader in and got the code P0139 - O2 Sensor Slow Response (Bank 1 Sensor 2). Not terribly clear from the Lotus Service Notes (http://vsic.lotuscars.com/system/files/documents/sn_emq_engine diagnostics_Exige_S.pdf) whether this is a sensor issue or the sensor reporting an issue elsewhere (e.g. knackered cat). I'm hoping it's just the O2 sensor on the blink (although why it would die after 11,000 miles/3.5 years I don't know). Anybody else had the same/similar?

Hi Gary, pretty good in the end - it was a fairly warm dry day and I still had about 2mm left on the outer tread after about 80 laps of Donington National at full pelt. However, this positive experience led to a negative one at Silverstone yesterday. Having checked numerous weather forecasts, it appeared to be a dry day, so I put the rather worn Trofeo Rs on with a view to getting one more day out of them. Bad idea. It was damp all day and I got no traction. Pretty much everything was overtaking me as I didn't have the confidence to carry speed into corners for fear of going straight on. If the track dried a bit, I was OK, but then the drizzle would come again and I was back to Bambi on ice. I don't know if it was a tread-depth issue or heat - the tyres did get warm (I did a warm-up session using normal road pressures of 32/38 and they went into the mid-40s and felt warm to the touch, so I dropped the pressures down as usual for track). Very frustrating, I don't know how much better it would have been on the Corsas, but considering lots of other people were using track tyres quite happily (well, mostly, there were certainly a few spins!), my guess is that my tyres were ultimately just a bit too worn for the conditions. Dry would have been fine. So apologies to all other Exige owners, I let the side down and there are probably videos online now of Fiestas and stuff going past my Exige at Silverstone, but there wasn't a whole lot I could do about it!

Thanks matey, I will take a look at that!

Good idea Martyn, will do that!

That's just rubber debris I think. I cleaned the wheels up after taking those pics, I didn't see anything untoward afterwards.

Imagine my delight to discover the sight in the attached photos when I took my track wheels off today. These are LF1 wheels freshly refurbished by Lotus Silverstone (for Tom who I bought them off). It looks like the balancing weights came off, wedged against the caliper and gouged a nice furrow out of the wheel whilst making a mess of the calipers. I've done plenty of trackdays and got things way hotter than in the Exige (including melting the paint off the wheels of my Integra and cracking two sets of discs on an RX-7), but I've never seen this before. I noticed similar but lesser damage on the other caliper (more in the middle) before the trackday when I took the road wheels off, I thought some garage monkey had done it but now I'm thinking it might be the same thing. Do I have any recourse to complain to someone about this!? Or just suck it up? I'm surprised a Lotus dealer would balance the wheels using weights/glue not up to a bit of heat.

I live in Derby now for my sins, so you're unlikely to see me unless it's A52 side or occasionally city centre.

I assumed that, hoping so!

Just changed my wheels for Donington tomorrow and noticed a black rubber tube coming from the front of the car on the driver side and dangling unconnected over the wishbone, as per pics attached. Anyone know what it is or if I should be concerned about it!?

Thanks guys. Yep, they're your old ones Tom! I'll give them a go, I will need to drive home on them but live close to Donington, so can always get my original wheels brought down if required. Of course, it will rain all day now...

I'm due to get my new ZZRs fitted tomorrow, but having taken the wheels out today, I'm not sure if the Trofeo Rs on them have enough tread to do a day at Donington. The fronts are well used/heated and the outer groove measures just under 3mm. You can see they're on the wear markers. The rears look less worn, but actually the outer groove measures just over 2mm. Is it possible that these could do a full trackday? I've never used Trofeo or Trofeo Rs so I've no idea of the wear rate. With the tread so worn, even if I can use them, would they be at their best?