BigTed

Just a follow up to my now fixed leaking problem if anyone's searching. The leak originated from the windscreen seal behind the A pillar on the passenger side. The water was somehow making its way all the way down and dripping from just behind the glove box. A bit of windscreen sealant and it's dry as a bone.

Thanks for the help. Will check the windscreen seal when I get chance and report back.

Not during my ownership. Is it possibly the windscreen seal then?

It's just leaking when it rains / during car washes - it's been hammering it down this morning. Also, I had the air con drain pipe looked at at my last service, although it was to clean out that one-way valve thingy at the other end.

Now the summer is over and normal service has resumed, I have managed to capture a thrilling video of my leak into the Evora passenger footwell complete with a heavy breathing soundtrack. Anyone have any ideas where it may be originating from?

Thanks for the details explanation @Benmac For anyone else where the reverse collar is loose and doesn't allow you to select reverse, in my case I noticed that you can feel a ring towards the top of the gearstick through the leather boot. Pull that up in the same was as the revers collar and bingo - reverse is selectable!

I've had exactly this happen this weekend on my 2011 S. @Benmac could you help explain to a complete numpty - did you have to take the leather boot out to get at the gubbins or could you get to it simply by unscrewing the gear knob?

Just got to say this colour combo is stunning. Lovely car.

@andyj007 Did you find out about the costs of the caliper swap?

I've had mine for 6 weeks but was looking since April! I used this video from one of our forum members to sell the kids thing to my wife. Worked a treat till we visited Lotus Silverstone whilst at the F1. It was closed, but we looked at a few on the forecourt. 'Are you sure the kids will fit in here' she said whilst looking through the rear window ;-) As for the reliability, most cars have their horror stories... Porsche engines blowing up, BMW timing belts, Elise head gaskets etc etc. The Evora's is the clutch disintegrating, which is a Lotus specialist £2.5k engine out jobbie. As far as I can tell it only affected a small batch of early models and is well overblown. The rest seem to be mostly minor electrical and sensor problems as the Toyota power plant is pretty much bomb proof. Nothing to worry about. As for all the blogs etc it's worth having a look on youtube. A favourite of mine was Jayemm's comparison between the 400 and the S1 S Sports Racer - very informative (plus the rest of Jayemms videos are great too). Wow - I guess I'm one of the 0.00032% of the UK population to own one! No wonder I've only ever seen one on the roads...

I absolutely love the Evora, and that's coming from someone who daily drove an Elise 111S for 10 years. It's comfortable, quick and puts a smile on my face every time I drive it! It does look amazing too, and is one of those cars that looks even better in the flesh. It's a real head turner, to the point where I get a bit embarrassed! I have two kids (3 and a 6 years old) and they fit in the back fine as they're both on booster seats. I'm a tall bloke that has to have my seat right the way back, but the 3 year old doesn't seem to mind doing the splits as there is 0 room for his legs.You can get a full car seat in for younger kids as I've seen other do it. I would try to up the budget for the S personally, but be prepared to wait months for the right model. I know I did. Someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe they only made around 400 Evora S so they are fairly rare. I got impatient a number of times and thought about buying the standard model, but in the end the waiting was worth it. I was in the same situation with the Elise 10 years ago. I waited for the more powerful 111S to come up for sale and jumped on it - no regrets there. Even at that age it was (2013), it seemed to be able to command a few grand more that the standard model Elise when I sold it a few weeks ago. I'm hoping it will be the same with the Evora S.

I was in exactly the same position as you. I started looking for an S in April and finally got one just over a month ago! I called all the Lotus dealers letting them know exactly what I wanted, so I could jump the queue if a suitable one came up before they even went on Pistonheads or Autotrader. I also set up automatic emails from a number of car websites to let me know when new cars came online. In the end one did pop up on Autotrader from a prestige non-Lotus dealer that was over 400 miles from where I live. It was exactly the right spec and a good price so within an hour I had put a deposit down and I collected the following week. I think you've got to be ready to pounce when a good one come up as they don't hang about. Maybe it will be different in the winter?? As for budget, only the Evora S Sports Racer will set you back £40k plus. If you can do without the fancy seats and black pack etc of the Sports Racer, you should be able to get a 2011 S with low mileage / premium and tech pack for mid 30s. Well, I did anyway and I'm really chuffed. Your choices for the standard 270 bhp model will be a lot wider, and you should be able to hit the 30k budget. However, I haven't driven one but most people say they're plenty quick enough for road driving. One thing to note is that apparently there have been many incremental improvements to the quality of the cars over the years, and that the 2012MY and later cars are supposed to be the best. There are a couple of very minor annoyances on my 2011 car, but nothing to write home about. Hope this helps!

Thanks for all the helpful replies guys I think I need to call social services on you lot...

I've got two kids (3 and 6) that I can shoehorn into the back of the Evora, but I've been taking their shoes off to stop the inevitable scuffing of the backs of the driver / front passenger seat. Has anyone found a more elegant solution like some sort of seat cover? I've tried a tazer but the tend to wake up after a while...

I've got the Elise at the moment but it's going soon. It was the first decent car I bought so I'll be *really* sorry to see it go. Anyway, the blue Elise > grey Evora seems like quite a common transition. Check out this post and this post for enthusiasts with equally great taste ;-) @JAWS even had exactly the same 111S as myself even down to the round Lotus badge on the back rather than the lettering.