The Evora 400 Diaries

[Barrykearley]

I even get that - and understand the frustration.

but - that seat runner forms part of the crash safety type approval things. A hammer might fix it - but it will still need an elegant tested and type approved fix. I'm afraid that's gonna take time. 

Vivaro doors are falling off or open when driven - mine squeaks - it's brand new - it'll go back - but there's no point as yet - it's a new vehicle and at least 18 months will be needed for any proper fix !!! Same as on the old transits when clutches and gearboxes fell out etc. 

[JayEmm]

I get that too, but Hethel assured me 100% that it's not the runner which is making the noise, but the seat itself.

I had also asked whether the runner was a "standard sparco" type because I was considering buying some off-the-shelf Sparco buckets to use instead. Not that I want to spend my own money fixing the problem, but if it would have fixed it I would have done it. Unfortunately everything I have been told suggests ONLY those seats fit in that car without modification or custom bracketry.

[Barrykearley]

Then I'm afraid - patience is needed.

i could get really angry about the van - what's the point - it's a known issue. If I shout it'd make bugger all difference frankly. 

it will be being pushed hard by others, dealers and lotus - I'd simmer down - drive the car, turn up the radio or hit the throttle harder and ignore the creak. A fix will be on its way. Life to short for stressing yourself out about stuff. 

Enjoy the car, enjoy life - and remember there's many a folk who would love their only problem to be a slightly squeaking seat in a sports car.  

 

[C8RKH]

So a wee bit of investigation and it seems / looks to me like the seat is based on a Sparco SPX - this is very much an upscale / upmarket seat that comes as standard as a carbon backed / carbon made seat - I may however be wrong here

I bet the only thing Lotus have done is asked Sparco to make the seat out of another material than carbon fibre to keep the cost down and change the stitching pattern to their own. The whole shape of the seat, the back of the seat, the mouldings for the back and side and the puller to move the backrest / back and fore to access the back seats is all the same.

Maybe the switch from carbon to a cheaper material has weakened something?

Now @JayEmm you said you thought it was the seat runner. lotus have assured you it isn't and that an internal redesign of the seat has been done by Sparco and they are creating a v2. That suggests to me that they (lotus, Sparco, the seat fairies or someone knowledgeable) has done some research and identified what they believe is the problem.  Then @cocpops mentions he thinks it is coming from the seat and not the runner (adjustment area between back and base i think he said) and you now say yes, you think yours was there as well.  If it was me, I think whilst i would be hugely frustrated and pissed off with the situation, totally compounded by having no courtesy car for my inconvenience of travelling back and forth to the factory, I would be inclined to allow the experts to get on with the job of finding the fix and I'd be biting my tongue on an update / supposition / POV or whatever on what the actual problem is or was, until once the "experts" have come back to me with their findings and their V2 seat.

As Bibs says, Italy goes on full holiday meltdown in August, practically no-one is working, i know this as i spent many years working with companies in Milan as a supplier and you just could not get anything to move. Give them a chance to properly investigate (it sounds like they have been doing it - the clues being words like redesign and V2 of the seat) and provide a fix. I can just see the next posting - the b@stards have given me seat V2 and the such and such or so and so widget on the whatever has fallen off - well, if you don't give them sufficient time (not sufficient to do the job properly not what you or I might deem acceptable) to do the redesign and fully test it......

I get that it is hugely frustrating, but constantly getting worked up over it and trying to second guess and clutch at straws as to what the issue might be is not going to get you, or anyone else, anywhere I fear.

I do see and feel and hear your pain by the way, but until we get a clear update and movement i fear the constant carping is not adding much to the story. i do however look forward to hearing that you have the issue fixed to your full satisfaction, especially now that Colin's is doing the same and i may well be in the queue to buy that when he finally decides to go to an even colder climate than Fife's!

 

[DJW]

Well my car is left in the garage as the noise is that bad, no amount of music hides it.  One way to keep miles down on a car I suppose. 

If it's sorted in September I'll put it down to one of those things in life.  However if it turns into months I won't be a happy bunny having so much money tied up in a car that is basically an expensive ornamement that is depreciating each month with little use. 

Fingers crossed for all its sorted quickly and we can get out there and parade our Lotus's to others  

Must admit I saw some Evora S1 seats up for sale and did consider buying, recovering in same leather as current seats and finding someone to make up some brackets to fit existing holes in floor.  But then I reminded myself it's a 3 month old car, and I shouldnt have to do that !   Would be nice to sit lower though 

Edited August 21, 2016 by DJW

[Colin G]

Weirdly we're just back from a day up north in mine, and the creaking that started a couple of weeks ago has gone again. My car has self healed.

[C8RKH]

8 minutes ago, DJW said:

Must admit I saw some Evora S1 seats up for sale and did consider buying, recovering in same leather as current seats and finding someone to make up some brackets to fit existing holes in floor.  But then I reminded myself it's a 3 month old car, and I shouldnt have to do that !   Would be nice to sit lower though 

I've got a lovely set of charcoal S1 Recaros with runners I can sell you!

@Colin G thank the fluk for that. Your car always looked special and now we know it is special!

[JayEmm]

@C8RKH Good investigation. They do look like the same seat, with only very minor changes. Interestingly the seat is advertised on the Sparco site as "available September 2016". That may explain why I had difficulties finding it a few months back. Or maybe I wasn't looking properly.

In any case, for what it's worth, it was Lotus who asked me to come in and have the seat done in July. They'd already had one crack at fixing mine by modifying it, but that proved only a temporary cure. It was also Lotus who told me that they'd be able to fit it this week, only to then not be able to.

As it happens, I had actually decided to just "wait it out" but the noises coming from the front of the car sounded serious enough to not warrant waiting, and my list of "other things" to do was so long that we decided to book this visit in even with an uncertainty regarding the seats. Creaky seats are very annoying but unlikely to be dangerous, creaking suspension possibly quite the opposite

 

32 minutes ago, DJW said:

Must admit I saw some Evora S1 seats up for sale and did consider buying, recovering in same leather as current seats and finding someone to make up some brackets to fit existing holes in floor.  But then I reminded myself it's a 3 month old car, and I shouldnt have to do that !   Would be nice to sit lower though 

I thought the same. I can tell you though, you won't sit any lower with S1 seats. Trust me on that one.

[C8RKH]

I had a brake separator thingy me jig (there I go getting all technical again, pah!) come loose on my car the other month. Got in the car, started her up, drove it out the drive and bugger me, it sounded like someone had put a quality street tin of spanners in the front boot thingy. Drove me wild it did and gave me cause for concern as I hit 3 figures (on a private road I must say on a friends shooting estate, wot wot!). Thankfully my mechanic found the issue and sorted it. It would have driven me to distraction.

I mention this, as I do genuinely want you to understand that I know just how bloody annoying squeaks and rattles can be and how it can go some way to dent your confidence in the car. I like to take the piss, out of myself as much as anyone else, but do have a more serious and sensitive side, I just keep miss-placing it. I put it down to age and having a stressful job with 5 days a week of travelling.

I still think the Recaro S1 seats are a better bet and if the two of you would like to start a bidding war, then the starting price is £900 the pair and I'll throw in the recaro boxes, packaging, the original wooden pallets, a copy of the original order and the delivery receipt, all for free. That's a great package that. A lot of provenance there, should help with the future value too. We all know the smart money is going into classics and the Evora S1 is a true classic - simplicity and beauty, class and innocence, all wrapped up in a sublime curvaceous body - think Elizabeth Taylor in her hay day (granted most S1's have had fewer drivers). So anything to do with / coming from the Evora S1 is only going to enhance your cars value, especially as these seats came from the rare and exclusive +0 model.

[JayEmm]

Speaking of quality street, I do need to buy a long thin attachment for the vacuum cleaner as the front of the 400 seems to get full of crap rather quickly (the connection there being mine has hoovered up a sweet wrapper and a fag end somehow). Unlikely to be an issue now, but from experience with older cars it'll become a problem eventually.

Also @C8RKH I do think the S1 Evora has a real chance of becoming a future classic. Given the numbers it was made in are tiny (I don't know how many made exactly, but I've heard "a few thousand") and it was an extremely well received car, I can see good examples being a very safe place to have cash. Maybe not going to be "classic" status for some time, but I can see them achieving that. Aluminium and fibreglass construction will definitely have its bonuses in the coming decades!

[CocoPops]

@JayEmms only 4 screws to remove front grill.

Must do mine... Followed a hay lorry and it's full of straw! The holes in the grill are too big! (Extra cooling, I get that)

[JayEmm]

Ah, good. I think I am going to make that a part of my own maintenance schedule.

[Eric W.]

1 hour ago, C8RKH said:

So a wee bit of investigation and it seems / looks to me like the seat is based on a Sparco SPX - this is very much an upscale / upmarket seat that comes as standard as a carbon backed / carbon made seat - I may however be wrong here

http://www.sparco.it/de/live/geneva-motor-show

Looks like future Koenigsegg Regera owners can look forward to having creaking seat issues as well.

[C8RKH]

The motoring journo' will refer to is as being evidence of the beautful bespoke nature of the Koenigsegg, one that embibes character and charm. An irritation, on such a handmade car ( hand made anywhere but Hethel), don't be so preposterous.

[Inkyfingers]

Regardless of the 400 issues, I'm liking all the talk of the S1 being a future classic.

[C8RKH]

Me too. Planning on keeping mine till I die! Kids can bury me and have a great party on the sale proceeds, hopefully. After all, the car will be feck all use to me when I'm cloud hopping. Added lightness or not!

Saving up for my next purchase, might be a Lotus but might be something else. Either way, I fink the Evora is staying for keeps.

[Inkyfingers]

I think I may end up keeping it long term as well. I had imagined I might swap it for something else after a couple of years, but genuinely can't think of anything (within reasonable budget) that I would swap it for.

Funnily enough, the only lusting I have had is for an older Elise, for some simpler, stripped down fun, that I might even be prepared to risk on a track.

[Colin P]

Maybe Lotus can get the carbon backed jobbies as replacements.  (Except those that have sprayed theirs yellow). 

[Bibs]

6 minutes ago, Inkyfingers said:

Funnily enough, the only lusting I have had is for an older Elise, for some simpler, stripped down fun, that I might even be prepared to risk on a track.

If you fancy coming out for a spin to get a taste, you'd be very welcome  

[Inkyfingers]

Cheers Bibs, may take you up on that when I think my wife might be amenable (amenable to buying an Elise that is, not for me accepting rides from strange men).

I have driven one about 10 years ago at Dream Machines in Sussex, and I loved it, but the timing wasn't quite right sadly.

[DJW]

I think Recaro must be chuckling to themselves when they see these threads 

[Barrykearley]

Dunno about that - some of the utter bull on ph is even worse....

[JayEmm]

I've still never driven an Elise, or Exige. I probably should for my channel. I deliberately chose not to when buying the 400 because I knew I'd be suckered in by the performance and ignore the lack of creature comforts on a test drive. An Exige V6 would be a huge amount of fun though, I think.

Given that these SPX seats are going in some seriously high-end cars, I am surprised JMG hasn't offered them as part of his carbon-tat-for-the-masses bit recently. I think a lot of people would happily pay a few extra £££ for gorgeous carbon backed seats. And they DO look stunning.

[Colin P]

8 hours ago, JayEmm said:

I am surprised JMG hasn't offered them as part of his carbon-tat-for-the-masses bit recently. I think a lot of people would happily pay a few extra £££ for gorgeous carbon backed seats. And they DO look stunning.

Oi, I resemble that comment  

[Neal H]

Maybe Lotus/Sparco could offer them as a goodwill gesture to those waiting for a seat warranty fix