Lotus Elise
 

Guy in work is looking to buy one for circa £7k.

Aside from seats and sill - any ex or current owners know what to look out for?

Cheers,

Mark

Some of the older Elises had engine trouble especially with the head gaskets or so i'm led to believe - Without deviating too much what about a VX220??? My mate sold one recently for 7k and it was mint - they have a 2.2 vectra engine in it with a relative low state of tune and are pretty much bulletproof even more so when you consider they are nearly half the weight of a Vectra.

They're a bit rattly inside probably due to them being hand built but are not much heavier than the Elise especially if you get the NA version as the Turbo uses a cast iron 2.0 block where the 2.2 is alloy.

I can vouch after driving it whilst not the quickest thing out there, was one of the most satisfying drives i've ever had.

economical too!!!

The base models are slower than a tesco's checkout girl ;)

Early ones had the rover k series engine, which I think having done a lot of reading on the K series it's not really suitable for a Lotus, Look for one with the Toyota Engine, but that would prob be more than 7k

This may be of some use : Technical

I fancy one of these as a daily driver so I can make the Scoob a weekend car (bit back to front maybe) Problem is they seem to hold their value well!

K-series is prone to inlet manifold gasket failures. Its heated and the coolant reservoir isn't big resulting in many a seized engine. I think any Toyota engined S2 will be considerably more than £7k sadly.

A friend had three goes at a VX220 Turbo. First one kept breaking down, left her stranded. Not sure why, but it went away for a new motor. Replacement loan car was also in and out of the garage, as was the original car again when it came back. She quickly swapped it a for 3-Series.

Shame, as it looks like a little cracker on paper - more powerful, more torquey and less revvy than the Toyota engined Elise.

maybe a bad 'un but my mates in the 18 or so months he had it never let him down once, having said that it was the NA version.

Mates had a series one Elise for about 4-5years now, and the headgasket has just gone (seems this is pretty much a given with the Rover K-series!) but otherwise its great. I couldn't use one as a daily driver as it rattles and crashes and bangs over bumps, and the roof leaks quite a lot! Performance is also weak beyond 80, but guess this is to be expected with the lower BHP output.

Handling-wise, and grin-factor hard to beat which is why people buy them :)

Yeah, handling with an Elise is just on another level completely, but you can only appreciate that when cornering at absolutely ludicrous speeds. On the other hand, if you've got a bit of straight line grunt to play with, which the Elise hasn't, you can enjoy that pretty much any time, and in complete safetly.

I found that at anything less than at least 8/10ths, the Elise was just a noisy bone-shaker, and hopelessly impractical. Magic track day tool, though :)

I've heard people buying Elises with knackered engines and lobbing in Civic Type r engines in them!!!! sounds a giggle to me. :D

A mate of mine ( I say mate, he's actually a tosser who I am unlucky enough to know) has an s1 elise, he paid around 6k for it and seeing it I'd never get one. In a straight line it really isn't that impressive, it can take corners well but that's about it. And the build quality isn't anything to shout about. It does also leak quite a bit. Had he have spent more he could have got a nicer condition one.

If you can find one in nice condition though, and one with bit more power than the base model then it will not be a bad car, just get used to climbing in and out while looking like a prat :lol1:

quality quote - pmsl

tesco checkout girls are so slow!!

Are there any quicker elises? or is it the k series or toyota engine and thats your lot?

Doh!
 

Well, he bought one anyway without any feedback :nono: - £7.2k - looked pretty tidy on an R-plate with sports suspension and exhaust and 40k on the clock - until the head gasket went on day 2 that is.....:cry:

Petem95 - Know how much your mate paid to get his done?

That's gutting! My mate got quoted something like £480 from a local garage (and £1300 from a specialist!), but he's ended up doing the job himself which looks like a complete nightmare (he's halfway through doing it), so wouldn't recommend it! He's going to change the cambelt while he's at it, and that goes around one of the engine mounts, so you need to undo the mount and lift the engine to get the belt on/off!

At least you'll know it shouldn't go again once you've replaced it. Seems to be a matter of 'when' not 'if' with the old k-series, so at least it when locally and not on a European road-trip!

He is totally gutted - having saved for a long time to move from his 306 to the elise. He even *just* avoided putting it into the trees on his drive home - it is a monster.

Will let him know that £500 is a ballpark figure.

I would be totally gutted.....thanks for the quick reply.:thumb:

A bit more than £7k but i'm selling mine ;)
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