Orsom Weels

The other half & I hope to make this one. Regards, Tim

Count me & the wife in, we'll be eating as well See you there, Tim

I'm not sure about tonight, only got home from a long weekend at a show with the Norton club late last night, so a bit knackered, & I then have a hospital appointment this afternoon which may leave time a bit tight. If we can make it we will, if not, see you all next month. Cheers, Tim

We will be, we also have some friends from Nottingham staying in the area who are hoping come along to see us, so could be 4 of us. Tim

I hope to be there, most likely with Mrs O

I've been looking for something to do on the FBHVC's 'Drive it day' & have decided, somewhat last minute, to go to Kersey mill near Hadleigh, Suffolk. https://www.kerseymill.net/forthcoming-events https://www.facebook.com/events/426748457673088/ Mrs O & I were staying in the area last year when this event was staged for the first time & it attracted a good number of cars from all era's, but there were only two lotuses there, our S4 Elan & a sunbeam Talbot Lotus. The weather wasn't as kind as it could have been, but we never the less had a good day, with a look round the mill & gardens etc, so thought we'd give it another go & hope for a nicer day. Anyone up for upping the number of lotus cars on display ? Tim

I/we've got to take the daughter back to her digs at Easton between 6 & 9pm on Easter Monday, ready for her course to start again the next morning. Poor planning if you ask me, but it means we'll be in the area so could join in if it's the usual evening get together & nosh. Also happy to consider other options if it's a bad night for others. Regards, Tim

We went through this middle of last year. We'd only been with BT about a month & lost our broadband, but the phone line was still working. Was told that couldn't happen, so it must be something in our house & we would have to pay their charge if that was found to be the case. After going through everything I could think of, I agreed to pay if it turned out to be our equipment. Two missed appointments, so two mornings wasted waiting in for them, then eventually an Openreach chap did turn up, 11 days after the fault was reported. He went through everything in the house & gave it all a clean bill of health, but did change a junction box where the cable comes through the floor into the house, mainly because the old one looked a bit daggy & was cracked. He then started to check the line. "That's strange" he said, " Your phone line's ok but you've got no broadband coming in, don't know how that can happen." "I was told it can't" said I. After then spending ages going up & down the road looking into all their little holes in the ground, another two vans arrived & we had a total of 4 blokes all adopting the heads down arses up stance around one of the holes. Later, one of them came & said that all was now fixed & our internet would start working again shortly. 2 days later, guess what, still no internet, but no phone either now ! I called BT to get them out again, but was told that the fault had been reported as fixed & therefore it must be our equipment, again, I had to agree to pay, but an Openreach appointment was made, & not kept. Another appointment was this time kept, & the guy who came looked at the new junction box & said "sorry, I can't do anything with that, it's not one of ours" "Your last chap put it there" I said, & he eventually agreed to put the correct box in & carry on, but made a big thing of telling me he shouldn't have touched it. Why? Anyway, after a lot of testing with various bits of equipment, he discovered that the first lot hadn't connected the correct set of cables in one of the holes somewhere, & once done we had phone & broadband on his test equipment, but no internet through the router. He replaced the router with an older second hand one he happened to have in his van, & everything was/is fine. by now over a month since the fault was first reported. We were both sure that the faulty router was the problem from the start. We did eventually get some compensation from BT for our weeks without the service we were paying for, they knocked £6 off our next bill! Bloody generous of them! Nothing for my three wasted morniongs waiting for no shows. As for speed, the max we can get is about 4 mb. The line won't handle any more ! What's most annoying is that for years we had Virgin broadband & never ever had a problem, it was only because they decided to drop wired broadband & concentrate on their own fibre optic network, which isn't available to us yet, that we had to change. We had a year with Plus net, then they wanted to hike the price to something ridiculous, so ended up with BT. Neither they, nor Openreach are fit for service in my opinion, BT's 'customer service' is a contradiction in terms! & it took 5 'engineers' to diagnose a dodgy router! Regards, Tim

Certainly willing to hear more Perhaps we can have a chat Monday at the BIH if we both make it?

@ChrisJ Thanks for that, yes, I was using a more general vehicle enquiry. Found it's MOT history now But it doesn't explain why details can't be found in the search I was using? https://vehicleenquiry.service.gov.uk/ If I enter a vehicles reg number & make, ignore the V5 doc ref box & hit search, I get info, like date of first reg, year of manufacture, engine size, type of fuel, colour, whether it's taxed or sorned, if it's MOT'd & for how long etc. Gives you a good bit of info on a car you're looking at as a potential purchase & can help tie up a description & pictures with what the DVLA hold on it. It can also serve as an indicator if a vendor is being honest or not. I've used it many times in the past, & the only other time I got a "Vehicle details could not be found", it turned out that the desirable registration number which was still shown in the pictures had been transferred, & the vehicle in question had been given an age related replacement, hence my supposition in my initial post. It might help if the vendor would reply to enquiries Cheers, Tim

Well I'm off to sulk now Doesn't work for me. I figured it must be a cookie thing or something on my laptop, but I've just checked all my vehicles & they all show up fine. Grrrr That's not so bad then, I prefer to have the power at the bottom end. Would there be any reliability &/or economy issues with such mods? I'm looking for a car to use more or less as a daily driver & need it to be reliable above all else.

Well that's strange, I checked it back in about November last year, then again this morning before I commented in my post, & again just now & all I get is this, GOV.UK Vehicle enquiry BETA This is a new service – your feedback will help us to improve it. Vehicle details could not be found Vehicle details could not be found as it has not been possible to locate the vehicle details, your enquiry cannot proceed and has been cancelled. If you want to check the vehicle record held by DVLA... Please contact vehicle enquiries: Phone: 0300 790 6802 Email: Send an Email An advisor will be able to assist you 8.00am - 7.00pm Monday to Friday and 8.00am - 2.00pm on Saturday. Search again A bit of a mystery! RE the interior, it's the colour more than the material, sorry, but I just don't like that combination . As I said, it's a personal thing. I've spent a good deal of my working life painting cars, & often got asked "what colour would you recommend" I would never answer, as what I may love, others may hate & visa versa.

It's been on the market since about August last year, & yes, for some reason they had it listed as an Eclipse? I like the exterior colour, but personally, not so much the interior, & wasn't sure about the engine mods, I'd rather have tractable reliability than outright power, wasn't sure what it would behave like. It's a bit far away from me to go look at it just on spec Another little anomaly, it's listed as a 1988 car, but date of first registration is stated as 29/04/87. I sent a couple of enquiry emails for more details, but got no reply, so tried doing a DVLA search on it, but the registration can not be found in combination with a Lotus, so might not have that plate any more? Tim

Good advice there Dan, Good advice there dan, that's what I always TRY to do That does look like a very nice Eclat, regarding the mileage, I'm looking for an Excel & every bit of advice I've been given is to avoid low mileage garage queens, go for a car that has been used regularly. Regards, Tim

Hi Mervyn, I don't know is the simple answer, do you have a '73' badge with the laurel? I don't recall seeing one & I've always preferred the earlier '72' badge for this reason. I've looked through everything I have & can find & can't actually find a picture of a '73' badge with the laurel. My first thought was that they had done away with it (the laurel) because of space, the more years they had to add on, the less room there is for such niceties, but then we get to the '78' badge, & the laurel is back, so there endeth that theory. You may get a more authoritative answer on Lotus Elan.net, ( http://www.lotuselan.net/forums/ ) Being an Elan/+2 specific forum, it's a mine of information more focused towards those models. Regards, Tim