Emira niggles and faults

[hml_xy]

@Rambosuggested in another thread that it would make sense to have a TLF overview of Emira issues. Since I had a few experiences in the weeks of ownership, I thought it might be a good idea to list them. 
 

I'd like to underline that my intention is not to paint a picture of an unreliable car, we should remember that all manufacturers have these kind of issues with new models.

And as always in life, it matters most how problems are handled. My dealer did an excellent job at doing his very best and I had the impression that Lotus HQ was very keen to monitor and hopefully learn in the process.

So here is my summary after 3 months and nearly 3000km:

1) Just before delivery - servo steering pump "broken", it turned out to be a full recall of servo pumps on the early cars from what we have heard in Emira owner circles. Since my car was one of the very first, it probably took longer than in other cases until the part was available. Others had it swapped very quickly.

2) Right (EU passenger side) door would not open. This one was upsetting me the most. Happenend on first day of ownership on the way to the Ring. Girlfriend couldn't step out the car in front of our favourite café before breakfast and had to climb out 🙈😅

Turned out to be some cable latch for the locking mechanism was broken inside the lock, got swapped on both sides of my car and apparently has created a lot of buzz in Hethel. Heard that guys from factory came over to inspect and that in my opinion is a good sign that issues get taken serious.

3) Rattling when turning steering rack. Few days after picking up car from dealer after issue no. 2 

One of the alloy floor panels flexed when turning the steering while standing still. After dealer reaching out to Hethel a few more rivets were added and the annoying noise is gone. This is a bit of a weird one, I was told that parts of the chassis slightly flexed under the force of the wheels turning while not moving. I got a video from the dealer that proofed that the sound was coming from the alloy floor panel.

Fixed in less than 24hrs and glad it wasn't anything serious on the steering components of the car. 

Minor other findings:

* Sometimes wireless carplay is a bit hesitant to connect, but this can also be an Apple thing and happens in other cars as well.

* Not a huge fan of the KEF audio quality. Miles ahead of old Lotus, not horrible at all for a sports car. But not as premium as the KEF name makes you wish for.

* Front parking sensor has a life on his own, but this could be also triggered by my number plate. 

* Climate control is a bit uneven in its temperature distribution, sometimes very hot / blowing in your face for no reason. But it stops after a few minutes.

* Same for heated seats: Sometimes very hot, sometimes not. As if the temperature sensors have a very steep threshold.

* Leather very slightly wrinkled in some areas, not perfect but you only notice when you know it.

* Rubber door seals are a reminiscence of the old E cars fitting quality. Slightly better but "you'll know it's a Lotus" 😅 

----

And to not sound too negative, I like to stretch that I am still a very happy and excited Emira owner!

What I don't care at all about is the water vs. boot lid situation many have talked about. Total no brainer, happens on other cars as well. My old Range Rover had water spilling inside the boot, also my F-Type.

Also the seats and the steering wheel or the shift quality - no issues to me for a sportscar for the road. Oh and it sounds great in my opinion!

And most importantly, I still believe that Lotus did the right thing with the Emira. Sure, it is less hardcore than the old cars. But for the spirited sports car driver who wants a car that makes you feel special - 100% success. Driving dynamics, brake feel, power. All top notch for this market segment (I am not comparing it to cars 2-3x the money). My most favourite feature is actually the ride quality (tour spec). Cannot wait to do more a lot of trips and daily driving with it!

[Rambo]

Well written Heiner.

No negativity at all, just initial teething issues, but it may well help other users with similar problems. And it's also very encouraging to hear that Lotus are being pro active with fixing the niggles 👍

[KennyN]

As suggested, cross posting this here to raise awareness of early issues.

[KennyN]

Having spoken to two "agents", it seems that those of us who have taken delivery of an Emira are doing real-world testing on behalf of Lotus.  Apparently, some software is available, but not everything that's needed to address the known issues.

I understand the need to deliver and get paid, but it feels like Lotus jumped the gun and compromised on quality.  How did ESC issues resulting in limp mode, HVAC with a mind of its own and wiper speed issues that will apparently all be addressed with software updates make it as far as customer cars, given the delays and claimed continuous QC in what should be a state of the art factory?  Never mind the more obvious issues.

The other thing that is abundantly clear is that Customer Care is no longer interested and any issues should be directed to an agent.  I guess they've done their job and been paid.

For those who are still waiting on a delivery date, don't be too disheartened that you don't have your car yet, hopefully, yours will be trouble-free when it does arrive.  It looks and drives well, but there are clearly still some issues to overcome.

[KennyN]

Another issue for the list, the OSF pad is not fully sweeping the disc, the rest are fine.  It's booked in to get all of the issues looked at in a couple of weeks, something tells me B&C are going to be busy!

[hml_xy]

Ouch, I'll have a close look at my discs tomorrow. Thanks for reporting.

[ramjet]

@KennyN I would expect a feathered edge to the disc where the rusty part borders the clean part of the disc. From that photo, I would be asking whether there is either a stepped face in the pad, or whether an incorrect pad has been fitted?

Does the inside of the disc show the same pattern?

[KennyN]

@ramjet I understand what you are suggesting, I have seen that on other cars.  In this case, the other discs are fully cleaned by the pads and on closer inspection, there appears to be some pad material stuck to the problem disc beyond the area photographed. The car has never been put away wet in an attempt to prevent such things, but who knows how the car was stored prior to the build being completed and delivery taking place.

I expect the pads will get replaced and the disc cleaned up, assuming it's not too bad.

It could be worse, I know someone who washed his Ferrari that had carbon ceramic brakes and put it away in the garage without going for a short drive to dry the brakes.  It was locked solid the following week and had to be recovered by the dealer.  A £25k bill and it was back in working condition 🙄 

[Graham Ridgway]

" a few more rivets were added" is noone else as worried about this as me?  It's not a Lotus 7 being made by a man in a shed!!

[koorby]

My experience now with 200 miles driven.

- I had a yellow engine warning icon on the dashboard which was always on. It turned out to be a faulty ECU which was replaced this morning by Hendy Lotus (thanks guys!) and after driving up to the Cotswolds the issue has not reoccurred.

- The boot would not open as we left, so I had to use the manual release behind the passenger seat. Subsequent openings worked fine with the fob.

- The KEF audio quality is to put it mildly, a complete joke. My iPhone has better quality. What is particularly bad is turn-by-turn spoken instructions from Waze/Google Maps which suffers from massive distortion and is almost illegible.

- User interface is fairly ordinary: two flicks forward or back on the automatic shifter to engage drive/reverse (why? My Porsches have a single movement); manual shifting with the lever is left/right, not forward back; no dedicated buttons for seat heaters; drive mode button is two-flicks and counter-intuitive, cruise control is fiddly, and the odometer is hidden in trip meter A. So not a good score for ergonomics really.

- Why no dedicated sport exhaust button?? It sounds terrific but I don’t always want to be in Sport/Track mode. Both my Evoras had a sports exhaust button.

- Driver’s seat feels a bit high and doesn’t have enough adjustments to get it feeling like it’s hugging you. Very comfy though!

 

So that is the sum total of my niggles really. Everything else about the car is sensational and feels like my Evoras but with a much more refined cabin and quality of finish.

I can’t wait to run her in and open up past 3000rpm 😝

[Jon Fuller]

If the audio is that bad, it has to be a fault surely?  Whilst the std system may be great, it's hard to believe they'd fit a system 'that' bad, or that distorts to that degree.

 

Metcalf never mentioned any distortion, he praised the Apple Car play etc.

 

Jon

[Speedluvver]

There must be an issue - mine is pretty good when using Spotify via CarPlay - the radio is 'ok' but streaming is really good for a car like this...

[Jack Stone]

Has anyone found their clock resetting? Mine is set to automatic but has reverted to 00:00 and a date in sept 2022! No battery issue as it’s always on trickle when not in use...

[jep]

Perhaps you have the DeLorean version? 

[Jack Stone]

Great Scott! That explains everything...

Edited June 24, 2023 by Jack Stone

[Stirling_Villeneuve]

So how are the later cars, any of these issues recurring or have Lotus resolved issues as they came up? 

Very much on the fence here, looking at all options here and a return to Lotus has always been on the cards. 

[Jon Fuller]

I've only covered about 1000 miles, but so far, faultless.

[Vulcan Grey]

On 03/05/2023 at 08:34, koorby said:

 

- The KEF audio quality is to put it mildly, a complete joke. My iPhone has better quality. What is particularly bad is turn-by-turn spoken instructions from Waze/Google Maps which suffers from massive distortion and is almost illegible.

 

Do you have an audio equalizer app on your phone by any chance?  I tried an equalizer app recently, was trying to get more out of some new earbuds, but the result on my Android Auto system in my car was bad distortion! I disabled the equalizer app, and everything was fine. 

 

[C8RKH]

I was at a LoT track day in Anglesey on Monday, and spoke to a few Emira owners.

One has handed his car back after fault after fault.

The other has been back to the dealer 12 times.

Another has had several ongoing issues.

All reported that they knew other owners with similar issues.

The general consensus was that very few cars are actually working reliably and without the need to visit the dealer. This was then causing the dealers issues as they were spending an inordinate amount of time negotiating with Lotus re warranty etc.  I know the "agent" model is no more going forwards (hallelujah we all cry), but the poor dealers really have, it would seem, bore the brunt of Lotus ineptitude/poor planning/poor quality.

A lot of the issues discussed were around/associated with, the heating resistors (apparently a 15 hour job as all the dash etc needs to come out) and the new electronic tech just not working/integrating well.

Generally, people happy with the cars, just not the build quality/niggles.

On track, the Emira's sound good, but when they are in convoy with the Exige 410/420 the exhaust note is significantly quieter and softer on the Emira. Also, my pit garage "partner" in his lovely Emira was averaging 5 mpg on track and went through two tanks of fuel on the day. He also complained that his brakes were cooking too. It was nice to see an Emira being put through it's paces on track, it does look epic on the track.

[Miguel]

I've just bought a June 2023 Emira. Only fault i seem to have is the bubbling paint on the door tops. Been told i'll be in the queue in 2-3 weeks for new doors but delivery of those is <gulp> three months, suspect that will streeeetch out further still, in the meantime i suspect the strings of bubbles will cause the paint to flake off?

No other problems just yet.

[Nick Sticks]

The heating resistor pack replacement/fix is a front end dismantle job rather than a dashboard but the length of time sounds about right.
The first fix to protect the resistor pack didn't solve the problem entirely and it took a while for a proper shield to be developed.
The problem seems to stem from power washers being aimed at those front bonnet edges and water getting in where it shouldn't.
Probably everyone has been affected by this up until the proper fix.
I'm not speaking from personal experience (yet) but from what I read in all the Emira forums.
Some people are reporting either none or minor problems.
I'm keeping my fingers crossed!

[C8RKH]

2 hours ago, Miguel said:

I've just bought a June 2023 Emira. Only fault i seem to have is the bubbling paint on the door tops. Been told i'll be in the queue in 2-3 weeks for new doors but delivery of those is <gulp> three months, suspect that will streeeetch out further still, in the meantime i suspect the strings of bubbles will cause the paint to flake off?

No other problems just yet.

Why do you need new doors, surely the paint can be stripped, repaired?  Apologies if I don't understand the issues.

[Nick Sticks]

26 minutes ago, C8RKH said:

Why do you need new doors, surely the paint can be stripped, repaired?  Apologies if I don't understand the issues.

The problem is that moisture is in the actual door composite which makes its way to the surface causing the bubbles in the paint.
It's difficult to get rid of the moisture so the only sure way is to replace the door with a good one.

The problem seems to happen mostly with the doors but it's happening on other panels as well.

Additional reading:
https://www.compositesworld.com/news/teijin-automotive-technologies-supplies-exterior-body-panels-to-lotus-emira

Edited Wednesday at 16:51 by Nick Sticks
Added more info

[C8RKH]

19 minutes ago, Nick Sticks said:

The problem is that moisture is in the actual door composite which makes its way to the surface causing the bubbles in the paint.
It's difficult to get rid of the moisture so the only sure way is to replace the door with a good one.

AND..... here we go. So this is a problem Lotus has had for 20 years. Whoops, my bad, 30 years!!!

The problems re moisture in the bodywork, and paint, have been well documented on Lotus cars for at least three decades. You telling me in all that time, Lotus has not sat down with it's manufacturing partners and told them to fix the issue once and all?

How can we justify a problem, that repeats and repeats, for three decades. Or more?

I'm sorry, but if this was me, and my car, I would completely and utterly lose the plot with Lotus. It's just shocking.

Someone will be along to tell me to calm down, make the usual excuses for Lotus, etc. There aren't any excuses for this.

Just my ten cents worth. Which is probably all my view is worth anyway.

 

PS:? what happens when the paint on the new doors does not "match" the rest of the bodywork?

[Nick Sticks]

"what happens when the paint on the new doors does not "match" the rest of the bodywork?"
I haven't seen anyone complain about that yet, just one person that said he was happy with the paint match and blending.
It's part of the reason I always buy cars with non-metallic paint.
It is the one thing I'm dreading the most but I'll try and remain relaxed in my old age.

For a longer read of the paint problem have a look here:

https://www.emiraforum.com/threads/poll-for-those-with-paint-blistering-bubbling-defect.3626/