Evora door latch needed

[Relic222]

12 minutes ago, Markindevon said:

Hi all,

Well... that light at the end of the tunnel may be real after all...

Hendy's have just confirmed that the factory has said the latches should be dispatched on May 17th to them... Fingers crossed (again!)

Uh oh... I thought Silverstone actually had them in stock. Looks like I'll need to lower my expectations again! Fingers crossed they do actually arrive by May 17th, but my fingers have been crossed for 18 months now, and I fear they'll be forever stuck in that position. 

[exeterjeep]

17 minutes ago, Markindevon said:

May 17th to them.

Well I suppose it is further from Norwich to Devon than Norwich to Silverstone...

[Markindevon]

1 hour ago, Relic222 said:

Uh oh... I thought Silverstone actually had them in stock. Looks like I'll need to lower my expectations again! Fingers crossed they do actually arrive by May 17th, but my fingers have been crossed for 18 months now, and I fear they'll be forever stuck in that position. 

Let us know what Lotus Silverstone say on dates... though I would expect them all to be the same dispatch day at least 😉

Hope your fingers have the chance to recover eventually!

[Bibs]

The first batch are being sent to dealers to fulfil back orders worldwide. 

If you don't have an order in, you're not on the back order list so you can either ask your dealer to order one or use TLF and you'll be added onto the list in date order of your, err, order.

[Markindevon]

They are doing a second batch... well I never, they must be flush with cash these days 😉  Excellent news (for when my driver's door one goes too!)

Thanks @Bibs

[Relic222]

Well, I booked the car in yesterday for the 31st May for a service and to fit the door latch, so as long as they receive it by then, it shouldn't be a problem. I've been on the back order list since last January, so I'm hoping that is honoured 😂

[Markindevon]

Update on the door latch situation.... I had my car booked in for next Monday as my dealer had been expecting the latch to be shipped yesterday.

Apparently, the latches have reached Lotus but they 'have to modify them' which apparently they are doing in batches and it will be another 2-3 weeks for mine.  

I've re-booked for a months time!

How can the factory have to re-engineer a new part??  I'd have expected any re-work to remove failure points would have been dealt with when they commissioned the batch... @Bibs (sorry to keep asking on this!) can you find out any more about what's going on... seems very odd to me.

[Bibs]

It's not uncommon. I can't remember off the top of my head but one of the letters in the part numbers signifies that it's a part which is changed by Lotus for their stock as it needs modifying from the manufacturer. This is usually when it's a part from another OEM that is used on our cars. 

[Markindevon]

Ah!  Thanks @Bibs that sort of makes sense... but if it's a part that comes from another manufacturer, why has there been a 2 year wait for availability?

Not that it makes any actual difference to the eventual outcome but I would be very interested to know the details behind this saga!

Cheers...

[Bibs]

#COVID I guess! Lots of these parts are made in China or India which closed plenty of their factories down and some still are. 

[Relic222]

Well, I have some good news. For the first time in 18 months I've been able to lock my car! New door latch fitted, all working correctly. The latch was fitted by Lotus Silverstone, they didn't mention any need for modification so I'm not sure what needed to be changed on yours @Markindevon

 

[Markindevon]

That’s great to hear @Relic222, no news from Hendy’s here on the part for mine but the car is still booked in later in the month.

[Relic222]

Well... That victory was very short lived. I took the car out for a quick drive today, and when I pulled up... The driver's door window dropped down slightly. Looks like my driver's side lock has now failed, just days after getting the passenger side on fixed.

[Markindevon]

OMG!  If that's really the cause, that is an appalling bit of bad timing.  Looking on the bright side, at least they have the parts available...!

[Markindevon]

@Relic222… I hope your lock has started to behave itself again… I’ve just been told by Hendy’s that it’s going to be another 8-10 weeks for mine to arrive… at this rate it will be out of the 12 month warranty by the time the part comes in.

flabbergasted!

[Relic222]

Wow, what has happened with their order?! How can it be a further 8-10 weeks? Unfortunately I can definitely relate having waited 18 months for mine to arrive.

As for my driver's side lock, it's still broken and looks like a complete failure. The passenger side would detect the door being closed if I put pressure on the door, but the driver side doesn't register anything at all, so will need to spend another £400 getting that sorted soon.

[Markindevon]

Sorry to hear that @Relic222… it’s a good job that these cars are so great to drive that these issues can be put into proportion… but it’s still annoying!

[Relic222]

Haha yeah. To be fair to my car, I've owned it for 4 years, and only had three issues with it - aircon failed early on, took 4 months to fix due to parts availability and a cock up by the dealer, passenger lock failed, took 18 months to fix due to stock, and now the driver's door has failed, but hopefully can get sorted quickly. So in my case, reliability has been decent, but when something goes wrong it takes an age to fix. 

[Tim K.]

Sheesh - drivers latch playing up ……

 

@scotty435 when you had the car which side was playing up and solved with wd40?

Edited July 29, 2022 by Tim K.

[Jovver]

The quality of these new parts is suspect to say the least. My driver's latch died in 2021 but I was lucky enough to replace it more or less straightaway.

The new latch lasted all of 13 months so it was just out of warranty before I had to replace it again. When  it was removed we found it had split in half (and I don't slam the door either).

Sorely tempted to try and make a claim against the credit card company under the consumer credit act as they are obviously not of any acceptable quality, and let them sort things out with Lotus.

Edited July 29, 2022 by Jovver

[scotty435]

3 hours ago, Tim K. said:

Sheesh - drivers latch playing up ……

 

@scotty435 when you had the car which side was playing up and solved with wd40?

Drivers side and yes WD40 fixed the problem. I did fit a new latch a few months later just in case the problem came back.

[Relic222]

I also relied on contact cleaner for a while, which worked for a few months, until eventually that stopped working too.

 

14 hours ago, Jovver said:

The quality of these new parts is suspect to say the least. My driver's latch died in 2021 but I was lucky enough to replace it more or less straightaway.

The new latch lasted all of 13 months so it was just out of warranty before I had to replace it again. When  it was removed we found it had split in half (and I don't slam the door either).

Sorely tempted to try and make a claim against the credit card company under the consumer credit act as they are obviously not of any acceptable quality, and let them sort things out with Lotus.

Interestingly when I dropped my car off on Wednesday the lady did say she was worried when she received my email, because she initially thought I was saying the passenger latch had failed already. Apparently someone else had that same problem - new latch fitted and it failed within a few weeks. We'll see what happens with mine...

[Jovver]

Fingers crossed your’s lasts longer than mine.

Here’s  a photo of my 13 month old door latch, the two metal plates have separated and the micro switch has broken off the lock along with a big chunk of the retaining plastic. 
Its not a great design, the fact that Lotus changed the door locks on the MY12 models suggests to me that Lotus didn’t think so either.

 

[C8RKH]

@Jovver I don't know where you live but in the UK you should get a free replacement for that part even if the "warranty" is a year as provided it was fitted to spec it clearly was not of the standard required and it woukd be very difficult for Lotus to argue in court that such an essential part is in effect a consumable!

Would be interested in how this resolves for you.

[Jovver]

Hi C8RKH and thanks for the reply. I’m in the UK so I think the way I’m going to approach this is to go through my credit card company and try to get a refund from them rather than going to Lotus direct.

I think the Consumer Credit Act applies here, so I’ll see what happens with this approach and let everyone know.

Interestingly, the person I spoke to at B&C described the latch as a ‘consumable part’ which is obviously a nonsense.

 

Edited July 30, 2022 by Jovver