The Evora 400 Diaries

[au-yt]

James take heart many a far more expensive car have significant issues, and the factory couldn’t care less. And I speak with experience, 

 

[Nathan Pitman]

It has to be said I’ve had more warranty claims with my 2yr old Evora in 5 months of ownership than I have with any other car I’ve owned (combined). 3 claims completed so far and another 4 claims in progress as it stands. 

These range from mechanical issues to interior fit/trim. Perhaps I’m a little blasé about it all as I have a 2nd car I can use but I’m not sure if that will continue once my warranty has expired and I’m footing the bill for all these things. 

[Bravo73]

2 hours ago, JayEmm said:

Having to pay for my own hire car wasn't particularly enjoyable

That is a Stratton policy, not a Lotus policy, isn’t it? You might have received a different service if you’d gone to a different dealer. 

[Barrykearley]

2 hours ago, JayEmm said:

This is the kind of thing I expect with £7k 10 year old cars, not £70k two year old ones. The fact it is a Lotus does not excuse it. If the company want to start charging six figures for their cars they need six figure service - not the two digit response some keep getting.

Can I recommend a Porsche ?

[Bruss]

Lotus should be rising above Porsche, not falling to their level.

 

 

 

 

[Barrykearley]

Couldn’t agree more. I’m sure the future will show a marked improvement 

[PaulCP]

1 hour ago, Nathan Pitman said:

It has to be said I’ve had more warranty claims with my 2yr old Evora in 5 months of ownership than I have with any other car I’ve owned (combined). 3 claims completed so far and another 4 claims in progress as it stands. 

These range from mechanical issues to interior fit/trim. Perhaps I’m a little blasé about it all as I have a 2nd car I can use but I’m not sure if that will continue once my warranty has expired and I’m footing the bill for all these things. 

Just by way of balancing this somewhat, I’ve had just 1 warranty claim since taking delivery of my Evora in July 2015, one of the very last S1’s to leave the production line. 

The warranty claim was for a new Engine Ventilation Panel when a bracket broke on the original one after 12 months. The only other issue I’ve had with it was the air con not working the day I collected it. Both issues were rectified quickly & without fuss by Lotus Silverstone. . I recently discovered a bit of water ingress via a door seal which was of my own doing 

I only wish I could say the same about Land Rover with the pain I had to go through before finally successfully rejecting the vehicle at 14 months old. If you want to truly experience atrocious customer service and appreciation buy a Land Rover 

[JayEmm]

I am confident Lotus will improve because if they do not, they are not going to last.

Stratton do have hire cars that was not the issue - they had none available to give me irrespective of price. Lotus themselves were not in as it was Friday afternoon, and when I called JCT600 they did not answer the phone either.

I and others I know have not had the best experience of Lotus Leeds lately, their almost total lack of staff is not helping. 

Incidentally, I am very grateful for the number of people posting here and elsewhere how I helped them into a Lotus product.

[RichardC]

I've always had excellent service from Lotus themselves but dealers can be hit and miss.

I put down a deposit on a new Elise at Kinsey Jones (remember them?) in Bury and they promptly went bust taking my £1000 with them. No problem, Lotus stepped in, although they weren't obliged to, and offered £1000 off an Elise ordered from elsewhere.

Elise S2 delivered from Lotus Ribble Valley (remember them too?). No warranty issues with this car at all. However the only time I booked it in for a service with Lotus Ribble Valley, they forgot to write it down in their diary so initially tried to send me away to come back another day. They did back down and fitted me in in the end though. I did all my own servicing after that. The car ran for 15 years and 175000 miles.

Since buying my Evora from Lotus Silverstone the service has been impeccable. Loan car - no problems. The car has had a handful of niggles (electric boot release button, manual emergency boot release handle, passenger seat tilt) but they have all been sorted out under warranty promptly and without fuss. I'd say that I've had a six figure service on a five figure car purchase from them.

 

 

Edited October 6, 2018 by RichardC
typo

[Bibs]

30 minutes ago, JayEmm said:

I am confident Lotus will improve because if they do not, they are not going to last.

Those companies are not Lotus, they are Lotus dealers. You beef is with them, not Lotus. It's not up to the manufacturer to fund courtesy cars, this is a dealers choice and responsibility.

Lotus has a rumoured £1,500,000,000 cash injection, I'm sure they will last mate despite you not getting a courtesy car from the dealership. 

[RichardC]

23 minutes ago, JayEmm said:

I am confident Lotus will improve because if they do not, they are not going to last.

Stratton do have hire cars that was not the issue - they had none available to give me irrespective of price. Lotus themselves were not in as it was Friday afternoon, and when I called JCT600 they did not answer the phone either.

I and others I know have not had the best experience of Lotus Leeds lately, their almost total lack of staff is not helping. 

Incidentally, I am very grateful for the number of people posting here and elsewhere how I helped them into a Lotus product.

I agree about Lotus Leeds. I went there first to investigate an buying an Evora. The sales person wasn't very knowledgable about the cars and didn't know about any of the differences between a Evora S1 and Evora 400. They couldn't even let me sit in the single 400 that they had in stock because someone had taken the car keys home with them the day before! The next weekend I took the train down to Lotus Silverstone and the difference was amazing. I bought the car there and then.

[JayEmm]

I agree @Bibs hence me taking pains to mention the fact that it is the dealer who really need to sort their act out. The factory have consistently gone above and beyond to help me with the car, even when their resources were extremely limited. I do believe that a harmonising of standards and services across dealers is a priority for Lotus and that's definitely going to help them going forwards. I was only at SMC for cosmetic work with the car - being told it was not safe to drive was not expected, and I am lucky they were so quick to be able to identify the issue.

I really want Lotus to succeed and take on their German rivals without excuses required. The engineering is largely solid and obviously attention has been paid to the ambitious pricing of some of the models.

Having spent some time in the USA, the way some of the owners out there have been treated with regards to warranty etc... is awful. Far worse than I have had, for sure. But, all the noise coming from the factory at the minute seems to be regarding improving the "customer experience", so that's good.

I'd had the car over two years, and it's completely untrue to say this made me sell it - I've gone through far more annoying situations. But it did make me a little sad that this was the last of my involvement with my dealer and the factory.

[Bruss]

I disagree. Lotus and the dealer are joined together as one. You either trust the dealer to sort everything, or not. If you have to go back to Lotus to get anything at all done then the dealer has failed and Lotus should pick up all the pieces, including a car hire if needed. Lotus choose the dealers to represent them ,not us the customer. Is anyone really suggesting tha Lotus now need to have a list of dealers who do the right thing, and another list of their chosen dealers who we should't go to?

The dealer either works to Lotus' standards as defined by Lotus, or they don't.

Lotus, get it sorted.

 

[Steffen_Leitgeb-LSWGmbh]

@JayEmm … and basically its my fault 😉 isn´t it? Or it was luck that the car was at Strattons anyway and they were able to react quickly?

Anyway I think a lot of you still ask too much from Lotus factory and dealers and their capabilities … they are a super small company with hand built cars and just are starting to get going. Also the dealers are small, have low volume cars and must offer a premium customer service at the same time and you even ask this at a fair price - this is hard to do when you are not selling new cars by the truckloads … 

I know stories about Porsche Panamera, GT3 (RS) and the lovely McLarens which makes your Evora experience a dream. One of my customers owned a McLaren MC12 and drove it within one year maybe 3 times, a replacement given … no way.
In the beginning these cars were perfect when working but they were really not bulletproof and no one outside of the box did get the true stories - why? Because the guys didn´t want to look like fools and at the same time they didn´t want to ruin the image to keep used car prices up 🙂

I really think Lotus is doing fine. I found areas where they are facing problems they may even have not noticed but I hope they will and correct. 

Personally I am into high quality and accordingly a high price. But I bought an used Evora S as my first Lotus instead of starting with a new 400. A test buy. I wanted to learn "the Lotus ways" because I do not trust others on that topic.

And it is like with every car if you are a little handy and know technically about cars in details (or you can ask others with high technical automotive knowledge) you sort out the basic problems of an exotic yourself. The previous (very honest) owner had constant and huge problems with this Evora I bought 2016 - my father and me we just listened to him carefully and took the car home and when the described problems arose (limp mode, no throttle response, problems with the driver seatbelt, cat / lambda problems) we just solved it ourselves. Okay Komo-Tech worked on the car too but only on the catalyzer thing as I wanted to change headers anyway. 

When I was really f*cking pissed with the coloring and design quality of the S forged wheels I started looking closer here. And when I did not get the Lotus Evora 410 wheels due to Lotus factory intervention (utterly ridiculous) then I checked my potential from the racing and here we have the Leitspeeds as there is no high quality option in the market anyway.

Reasonable price for high quality and lightweight and a reasonable service for a still low volume car company: I hope this will be the future for Lotus.

[Steffen_Leitgeb-LSWGmbh]

15 minutes ago, Bruss said:

 

The dealer either works to Lotus' standards as defined by Lotus, or they don't.

Lotus, get it sorted.

 

Agreed basically. It is the way to go. But at the moment it would be tough. Do you really think a big car dealership chooses Lotus - maybe as the 5th brand in store - for the profits … and not for the love of the brand?

[Bruss]

Everything you say is true, just as it was whenI bought my first Lotus in 1972. It's about time they got their act together. At 100k plus for a new car I expect better. 

[Neal H]

I think a lot depends on how you buy the car in the first place. If you buy it from your local dealer and take it back there for warranty issues they will really look after you, including a loan car. If you buy from the other end of the country to save a couple of grand and then expect your local dealer to give you all the freebies when you hit trouble, then you’re going to be disappointed.

[Bruss]

I understand that but I bought an XKR in Belgium when I lived there. I had a problem in Chelsea with a stuck leccie window. Jag took the car away, left me with a loan, and then returned the car back to me the following day. I had another minor paint problem another time in Reading, again taken away and corrected, with a courtesy car supplied. It can be done.

If Lotus want to play at this price point then they simply have to improve the after care experience. 

 

[JayEmm]

@Neal H actually my main motivator was colour - only two cars in the spec I wanted and the other was at Murray's!

It should also be pointed out that as a business JCT600 are massive, last time I looked they had a higher turnover than Lotus! 

FWIW the offer of a hire car was one made to me by them when I first bought the car if I had any issues, but I never took them up on it till now. This was the one and only time I was ever totally stuck without another means of transport.

[SH]

56 minutes ago, Bruss said:

Everything you say is true, just as it was whenI bought my first Lotus in 1972. It's about time they got their act together. At 100k plus for a new car I expect better. 

.. and they are better.  Much better!  In fact, they are an entirely different animal when compared to their '1972' selves.

And the prices?   Where else are folks buying their (comparable) hand-built sports cars from at significantly less money?

 

[SH]

... and getting an other-worldly customer service experience to boot?

[JayEmm]

The issue with Lotus dealers is because there are fewer of them. Any other big brand has bad dealers, sure, but there will also be a specialist or another dealer 20 miles away.

When you have one dealer serving a 400 mile area, they need to be up to standard.

Is that easy in Lotus' position? No. But I hope that's where some of this new money goes. The dealers do work hard but haven't always been given the support they deserve from factory.

[stephenwhyte]

My gripe with Lotus warranty claims, is the time it takes to turn an identified problem into a solution - I am told by my dealer that this is Neil Turners remit - surely it can’t all be down to one man🤔

I’ve also been told by my dealer that my current steering wheel issue would be best resolved with a new steering wheel - reported by my dealer to Lotus 2 months ago.......they are apparently still waiting on a response🙄 

[PaulCP]

10 minutes ago, stephenwhyte said:

I’ve also been told by my dealer that my current steering wheel issue would be best resolved with a new steering wheel - reported by my dealer to Lotus 2 months ago.......they are apparently still waiting on a response🙄 

“still waiting for a response” is usually an excuse which translates into an admission from someone who is not proactive. Have they chased a response?

I waited less than a week for confirmation that the ventilation panel would be replaced under warranty.

[stephenwhyte]

22 minutes ago, PaulCP said:

“still waiting for a response” is usually an excuse which translates into an admission from someone who is not proactive. Have they chased a response?

I waited less than a week for confirmation that the ventilation panel would be replaced under warranty.

Ian the Service Manager is on the case - I’m hoping he will have a response for me next week.