Buying an S1 elise

[s29ttc]

make sure you know how to jack it also

Putting a jack through an Elise sill has been done before

By me on Friday night.....

Ouchhhh! Easy enough to fix?

[Alex 111s]

(4) As with any car purchase, try not to become too seduced and buy the first car that you go to look at, and if you have the slightest bit of doubt then walk away from it.

Good luck with your search

and that bit is priceless advice. it is far to easy to let yourself get carried away.

[s29ttc]

Yeah course it is, I wont be jumping at anything if its not 100% I got my mechanic friend who will knock some sense into me if its not sound.

[RDH]

(4) As with any car purchase, try not to become too seduced and buy the first car that you go to look at, and if you have the slightest bit of doubt then walk away from it.

Good luck with your search

and that bit is priceless advice. it is far to easy to let yourself get carried away.

Also never pay the full asking price like I did

[s29ttc]

Yeah obviously most put fat on the price when advertising to allow for haggling!

[CSK_423]

Standard Q's 1st.......

1. MOT ?
2. Tax ?
3. What kind of FSH does it have, dealer, specialist, Arnold shark ! when is its next service and what is it A, B or C ?

I'm going to stick my kneck out and say it doesn't have MMC discs, solely based on the car having the later Cobra alarm/imob. fitted, I don't think these later models came with MMC's but someone may shoot me down

Apart from that drive it, see how it feels, go through the checlkist you mentioned in your 1st post.

Personally I think it's the wrong colour although the cream leather is a good contrast with the black I would go for something a bit more colourful, I had a Calypso Red S1.

[campbell]

i would say that if you dont have a 2 or 3K contingency fund then you shouldnt be buying an elise, but maybe i am just unlucky with cars breaking down on me.

top advice that

I was lucky enough to maintain a "fighting fund" about that level for about the first 6 years of Elise ownership, and although I never used it all in one go, it was a vital buffer to ensure the car stayed on the road. That period ended coinciding with the arrival of sproglet #1, funnily enough, and I now do find it a lot harder to keep the car ever-ready.

That said, if you are mechanically minded (I think you said you are), then you will find existing answers to most issues on here or the other Lotus forums, and if not, there is growing collection of "old hacks" (!) here who can work out most new issues from first principles. I owe the equivalent of several years' fighting fund to several of them

Recent owner nxy said an interesting thing to me recently - "now that I know the Elise and what it's like to work on, I'll not be fazed if I were going out to buy another" - I think that's quite a testament to the general simplicity and maintainability of the car.

Specifics I spotted from the ad you posted were the P-Zero tyres (deathtrap, do not drive any distance or at any kind of cornering pace on these other than in bone dry weather, get 'em changed to Toyos or Yoko Advan Neovas pronto). Also ad claims it's metallic, but it looks black? Or is it deep purple or nautilus, both can look black in dull light I guess.

You asked about suspension earlier. The Konis fitted by the factory are, frankly, pants. They will clunk a lot after only a few K miles and whilst they continue to damp OK when this is happening, it is annoying and could mask a true damper failure. Many cars will have been fitted with various aftermarket shocks to cure this, including Spax, Leda, GAZ and Nitron. The latter are "the best quality" but generally rock hard setup and poorly adapted for road use. Although there is a new variant, Nitron Racing Red, that offes some compromise. Noops can comment here I think. I had Spax which claimed to be adjustable but when set to correctly match their springs, were just too hard. And they wore out fairly quickly. I am now on the people's choice, the "S2 for S1 kit" which is a Bilstein damper (some claim it's self-adjusting...I believe them, but it's not necessarily relevant!) and provides what the S1 should have had from day 1. If the dampers on your chosen car do need changing, that's your best option unless it will be predominantly a track car in which case others need to comment.

I think overall there is a good stock of S1s to pick from if you can travel, so take your time to get it right. The variation in quality will be significant. As Simon I said, low mileage examples are not necessarily a good option...many of the wear-related things have yet to happen to them! That said, if you treat each wear-related issue as an opportunity for improvement, you will soon end up with a better S1 than left the factory. I have a relatively late one, a 1999 with all the "fixes" and the subtle tweaks I've made over the years genuinely render it better than the day I picked it up

OK enough waffle, you can get back to the true wisdom now!!

Campbell

[s29ttc]

Thanks for the advice mate muchas appreciated

[Andy G]

Scott - spent a day in the company of various Loti's yesterday, and then worked on my S1 till late.

Get in amongst it - you'll have no shortage of help should you have a problem, and having Ali (SLS) or Dan (JPS) is helping make keeping Loti even more managable financially.

Now if i can just get it MOT'd...........

[Victor Meldrew]

make sure you know how to jack it also

Putting a jack through an Elise sill has been done before

By me on Friday night.....

Ouchhhh! Easy enough to fix?

Silver Duck tape...


You get it in black as well so the two best colours are silver and black for a track shed.

[thinfourth]

Where is the car you are looking at as it might be near Rich on of the resident hammer wielding engineering animal

i just thought of that at the mention of duct tape

[Mike Scib]

i would say that if you dont have a 2 or 3K contingency fund then you shouldnt be buying an elise, but maybe i am just unlucky with cars breaking down on me.

Hence why i bought a Honda

[Rich H]

Its in Derbyshire so a fair way off.
I only weild hammers when I can find them, I normally use the ratchet handle...

[Shug]

i would say that if you dont have a 2 or 3K contingency fund then you shouldnt be buying an elise, but maybe i am just unlucky with cars breaking down on me.

Hence why i bought a Honda

You remember you're on a Lotus forum, right?

[s29ttc]

Guys wee bit of help, guy reduced his car right down so I thought I would have a wee research into it. Its a 135 sport, but when I phoned my insurance to enquire about the cost he gave me 2 prices one standard, one for the 135. Anyways when I gave him the registration plate it came back as a standard car. I emailed the guy regarding this and here was my reponse.

The said car : http://www.pistonheads.com/sales/529774.htm

Hi Scott It is definitely a sport 135, I have a sales invoice dated year 2000 from a lotus dealer which states that it is. It also has sport 135 on the rocker cover. To the best of my knowledge, the sport 135 model came out just after this car was made, at which point Louts offered it as an upgrade on standard older cars.

Its is beacuase the car is a 135 conversion rather than factory car (which are pretty rare) that it is probably not coming up as such on your insurance companies computer. When looking for my own insurace, companies seemed to fall into 3 groups... either they understood that this was an official upgrade option offered by lotus and quoted for a sport 135.

They were an online company which had a check box under 'modifications' which you could put down engine modification 15% power increase, or thirdly they just didn't understand, got confused and I went elsewhere. I tried a few companies, and in the end managed to find a quote that was pretty much the same as for a standard elise.

Its worth trying confused.com etc I had a few reasonable quotes off there. The specialists and brokers were also quite good as they understood the nature of the car. Hope this helps. If you have any more questions feel free to give me a call.

Regards Gez