Lotus Elise S1 Problems


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Elise S1 Problems Floor Corrosion Update (Jan 2004) - Lotus are still investigating this problem and a final solution should appear in 2-3 months time. Various solutions are under evaluation and trial in customer cars. Neil Turner is no longer in Customer Services. All future correspondence should be sent to Valerie Milton-Keates on 01953 608844. A lot of owners have started to notice problems with the floor in the footwells. This is more common in later cars which had a rubber mat stuck to the aluminium floor. Earlier cars had bare floors. Basically, water gets trapped and causes oxidation in the aluminium, often resulting in open holes to the ground. Aluminum Oxide is a white powdery substance and most owners have detected the problem by noticing lumps in the rubber mat. Lotus are still investigating the issue and have yet to make a formal response. If you find bumps under the mats in your car you should remove the mats and inspect the floor. It may be worth doing this any way before corrosion starts. Standard carpet mats can be used on the floor once it has been treated. Battery Drain See the battery section for more details. Bodywork Fixings The inner wheel arch liners are joined to the wings by several Philips screws made from zinc plated steel. These corrode rapidly and make removal very difficult. It is recommended that these are replaced with stainless steels equivalents as soon as possible. Boot Release The lubrication appliced to the boot release cable on the production line is not up to scratch. Most dealers will pick this up in the PDI but if it's stiff then oil/grease it as soon as possible. Some owners have experienced stuck boots or snapped the cable. I've oiled mine anyway just in case and had no problems with it. Bonnet Release The above also applies to the bonnet but the cause may be one of several problems. Things to try are: Grasp bonnet at rear edge next to screen and wiggle fairly hard from side to side whilst pulling upwards. If this works it is likely that the pin/catch are out of alignment and need re-aligning. Try pushing the bonnet shut whilst someone pulls the handle. This usually means the catch is sticking and needs lubricating. If neither works you can reach the catch through the wheel arch liner but this is not a simple job. Brakes See the brakes section for more details. Clutch Pedal The clutch pedal can become stiff in operation due to a tolerance/lubrication problem. Removing the pedal is not an easy task but WD40 or grease will resolve the problem. A related problem on some cars is a clicking due to a loose pedal on the extruded arm. This is fixed with a glue and pop rivet. The solution is to drill out the rivet and refix with Aradlite and another rivet. I cured a small squeek on my car with a drop of oil. Coolant Loss The jubilee clips on the radiator hoses need to be checked regularly. This is an all too frequent problem on new Elises and most dealers check them as part of the pre-delivery checks. Door Mirrors These are from a Rover Metro/100 and adjust by swivelling on a ball joint. Due to the smoothness of this ball the mirrors can droop slightly. A fix is to roughen the ball surface with a file before tightening up. Door Retainers Earlier Elises have problems with the door retainers breaking and a piece of metal would break off (about 5" long). This has been redesigned for the newer cars. It takes about an hour to fix and costs about £80. The front clamshell does not have to be removed to fix this. Fuel Gauge The fuel gauge is not accurate at low levels and is variable from car to car. According to the manual it reads 'full' at more than 36 litres and then provides a numerical reading down to 11 litres, at which point it reads 'refill'. When it says refill, it means it and on some cars this warning may be noticed too late. Fuel Injection Pump Fuse On older cars it is possible for the fuel injection pump fuse to blow leaving you stranded. Older cars have a 10A fuse which is now a 20A fuse on later cars. It has also moved location. As with any car it is advisable to carry some spare fuses. Gaiters In some of the more recent (1999) Elises the steering arm track rod ends have worn prematurly due to the rubber gaiters splitting. This work should be done under warranty and is due to a bad batch of components. The rack gaiters can also be affected. Headlight Covers The Elise used to be supplied with headlight covers which had the annoying habit of steaming up and distorting the light beam. Lotus failed to find a solution to this and the car is then supplied without them. See the accessories section for more details. some later variants like the 111S were shipped with them as standard but the misting problem was never really resolved. Handbrake Warning Light There is a small micro-switch under the handbrake which operates the warning light and the switch blade can get bent, resulting in unpredicatble operation. It is quite easy to reach and fix and requires the handbrake moulding to be moved up the handle. It won't come completely off, over the handle of the handbrake. Heater The heater cable that controls the diversion of air from the screen to the footwell often needs fine tuning to ensure that air really is diverted to the footwell when the lever is pushed fully to the left. The foam packing used to ship the heater unit to Lotus, is sometimes left within the unit fitted to the car. On first using the fan it gets chopped up and 'snows' into the car. It's difficult to reach the unit and the best bet is to get the dealer to remove it. Hydraulics Clutch 'Red' Hose All new Elises come with a braided clutch hose now. Older Elises had a problem with the clutch hydraulic hose, which runs from the master cylinder (attached to the pedal) to the slave (attached to the clutch in the engine bay). The infamous 'red hose' was strapped to the radiator return pipe (the radiator is in the front of the car) and on hot days the engine and radiator hose heated up, causing the hydraulic hose to soften. This softening means that pedal effort went into expanding the pipe and not in moving the clutch plates, thus causing difficult/impossible gear changes. Lotus have fixed this on the production line, but cars prior to this fix will be susceptable and need a 'fixing kit' to be dealer fitted. Note that re-routing will improve this, but ideally a steel braided hose should be fitted as a replacement, given a much improved clutch action. A related problem on all cars is that the slave cyclinder fixing plate (in the engine bay) can flex, also causing problems in changing gear. Leaks The soft top roof leaks when it has not been fitted centrally or the instructions have not been carefully followed. Care must be taken to trap the foam seal at the leading edge of the side windows. Applying Fabsil water repellant to the soft top will improve its resistance to leaks. Noises The Elise is never going to be a quiet car due to its minimal construction. The excellent chassis design has the unfortunate effect of providing an excellent acoustic path and the lack of sound proofing to save weight, and the minimal interior also contribute to the overall 'sound track' of the car. This is a feature and not a problem but there are some noises that can be eliminated: The seats can sometimes squeek. This may be the leather but the solution is usually to tighten the allen key bolts holding the seat to the floor. Also try pushing the drivers seat as far forward as possible and greasing the runners. A very few owners have mentioned that the dash fixing clips can work loose and slide to the left or right, then drop into the chassis causing annoying rattles. These can be retrieved by removing the dash trays (which cover small access holes) and refitted by a dealer. It is advised to check them on delivery. Some cars have a 'dry' sqeak caused by the foam block on the drivers side, which centalises the cooling pipe in the main chassis extrusion. Lubrication with ArmorAll or similar silicon oil/water emulsion seems to fix it. Some owners have noticed a vibrating noise at about 2500rpm which is usually due to a slight mis-alignment of the under tray or the bolts being slightly loose. On early models the suspension is noisy. See the suspension section for more details. The Elise has an aluminium chassis and undertray and this causes a lot of noise when stones fly up and hit the floor. Can't do much about this apart from avoiding newly resurfaced roads or driving slower. Radio Reception See the DIY radio installation section for more details. Rear Window See windows section for more details. Sticky Starter Motor You turn the key, the Stack unit lights and the fuel pump whirrs, but nothing else happens. This is commonly down to corroded terminals on the starter motor but occasionaly the starter motor can have a 'dead spot' due to brushes wearing and a reconditioned or new one is the only alternative. Good old 'hammer engineering' can often help by moving the starter motor past the dead spot. Bump starting a car with a catalytic convertor is not a good idea as unburnt fuel can damage the catalyst. Stone Chips The Elise is very low to the ground and also tends to be going quite fast. This means that it picks up a lot of stone chips. The solution is to use the transparent plastic guards that are now fitted as standard around the leading edge of the rear wheel arches and to fit a similar material to the front nose. A touch up paint is available from your dealer and is a must on picking up the car. Stick on paint protection films can be used to reduce paint chips and are described in the accessories section. Another problem is that the driving lights can get broken and these stick on protection mechanisms can save you alot of money here. Temperature Sender If the Stack unit is proividing eratic temperature readings this is usually down to poor electrical connection between the sender and the display. you can confirm a poor earth path by switching on the lights. This should not affect the temperature reading. If the fuel sender is also providing eratic readings then it is very likely that the voltage regulator in the Stack unit has failed. Thermotstat Failure If you Elise is running about 20°C below the normal operating temperature then stop! The thermostat is likely to have failed. The Elise has two temperature senders, one controls the fan and the engine management unit, the other goes to the display. If you keep driving the temperature reading will eventually return to normal and your head gasket will blow. This has happened to two early Elise owners. Based on previous owners experiences, normal operating temperatures for the Elise S1 are: Normal working temperature is about 87°C. It can go down to 84°C when on the motorway due to the increased airflow over the radiator. It can go up to 90°C when stationary for a short while. When you're in traffic the temperature will slowly climb until the fan is activated. The fan activates at about 100 degrees C. Above this temperature the readout will flash. Once activated, the fan stops when 93°C is reached. Throttle Body On a number of S1 cars the accelerator can stick causing the engine to idle at higher than normal speeds (2000rpm seems common). This is often mistaken as being a feature of the automatic choke but the problem will occur long after the engine has reached operating temperature. This is usually down to the throttle end of the cable which gets wet in the rain. Some owners have had the throttle body replaced under warranty. some dealers provide a quick fix by putting another turn in the throttle return spring but this extra strain can distort the throttle body and cause the problem to reoccur at a later date. Lotus later replaced the plastic throttle body on the Elise S1 with an aluminium one that is less prone to the sticking problems caused by heat in the engine bay. Several owners have had this fixed under warranty. This is the only real cure to the problem and you can expect to pay about £80 for a replacement. Window Winders See windows section for more details. Under Tray Some owners have had problems with the under tray working loose. It is recommended that this is checked regularly, especially if it gets noisy. It is also recommend that these zinc plated bolts are replaced with stainless steel equivalents to stop corrosion problems. These Are Not Problems Steamed Up Windscreen If you leave the car outside water can collect on the bodywork above the radiator. If the car is warm and you then perform a rapid change in direction the water can drop onto the hot radiator, causing the windscreen to steam up on the outside. This can go on for quite a while as water collected in the radiator air duct is blown up onto the radiator. Warm Chassis The right-hand side of the chassis can get quite warm. This is not a problem but a feature of the car. Since the engine is in the back and the radiator in the front, an aluminium pipe runs down the inside of the chassis side members. The hot water from the engine runs down the right-hand side and the return pipe runs down the left-hand side. This is true regardless of it being a left or right hand drive car.
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