Bahar Suspended

[Stirling_Villeneuve]

Wasn't the Healey experience a classic case of Lotus getting someone else to do their R&D in public? I've never owned an Esprit but I came close a couple of times. Back in the day even B&C told me to avoid the V8s, ( in both sales and service! ), and they weren't alone.

I understand the need for a decent lump though, but would anyone really care if Lotus priced the Esprit accordingly and perhaps reverted to the German alternatives? There's a gap in the market somewhere... perhaps priced against the R8 as opposed to the 458?

[Kimbers]

No chance*!

*Just called Hethel to clarify. Out of over 1,600 V8's built, perhaps 100 were replaced over the life of the engine.

Oh FFS, I didn't say replaced engines! OK then. How many have had new heads/head gaskets? How many have had reliability problems. Its my understanding there isn't a car out there without an adjusted/replaced parts.

[Bibs]

You said 'failure' which in automotive terms means to have it replaced. If it's failed, it needs to be replaced.

Even modern cars mass produced need to be fixed from time to time. My pals '09 Kia is having a replacement short engine due to compression problems, nothing so complicated will be without fault. Kind of mutes your point, FFS.

[Kimbers]

There is absolutely no way anyone in the automotive world would ever call the Esprit V8 engine reliable when it was launched (or Lunched as has happened to some) or even possibly for years after.

And I said FFS because I was getting exasperated at people constantly putting words in my mouth.

And your mates car was one from a production run of hundreds of thousands. Not 100 from 1600 (or 1 in 16). If we convert these figures to the Kia model then it would equate to 10,000 total failures for 160,000. Thats a rediculously high figure that no manufacturer would accept.

[molemot]

This is becoming semantics...if something "fails"...it has gone wrong, failed to work, and needs to be fixed. Surely this can be done by repair? Fitting the odd new bit to replace whatever has died? Not necessarily changing the whole motor....or car, if taken to the logical extreme. I admit my perception of the V8 isn't of total shining reliability....based entirely on what I've read on these Forums and elsewhere.

[Bibs]

I just asked someone in Lotus "Did the 918 have a 1 in 4 failure rate" and got a chuckle in reply.

No, the engine wasn't a shining example of reliability but it wasn't terrible and as a testament to this people are still driving V8s and indeed spent £60-70k on them 8 years into production which wouldn't have happened if they were that bad.

All the same, this is 17 years ago and how it equates to now I have no idea!

[Gus82]

I understand the need for a decent lump though, but would anyone really care if Lotus priced the Esprit accordingly and perhaps reverted to the German alternatives? There's a gap in the market somewhere... perhaps priced against the R8 as opposed to the 458?

It partly depends I guess on whether the engine makes up part of the structure of the car, as was hinted at in one of the old EVO articles, though this may have had more to do with its intended use in the LMP2 car, rather than the Esprit.

I think the one positive of keeping the engine and the higher pricing would be that it leaves plenty of room for many variants of the Evora and its successor below which could share many parts with the Esprit, but the cheaper car could definitely use a bought in V6. After all the Evora already has a good engine that sounds great.

Edited June 13, 2012 by Gus82

[Mark Blanchard]

Is the Esprit engine unreliable? How many times have you been stranded Mark?

Never broken down in 10 years. But as mentioned the 900 series engine was a piece of crap when it was launched and the V8 wasn't much better either when it was launched. With development they improved.

The Elise and Evora with their Toyota lumps are reliable cars and are well percieved. I think that should've been the way to go.

[Bibs]

What about the k-seried Elise? HGF anyone?

I'm not saying every car should have an in house engine, (in fact I'm not even sure what I'm saying or why now!) but not every use of someone else's 'reliable' engine is a golden decision.

[Exploded]

Bibs, I talked to a Belgian dealer, he sold 14 new Esprit V8 in the V8's existence, ALL engines have been overhauled completely, some of them even more than once!!! The V8's were VERY unreliable, certainly if the liners were not put in with the special product they came with later on. I can't remember the name but it was PC 3400 or something. The new engine, as I said before, is something you need when your sales are booming, you have a strong line-up of cars and your eyes are dazzling by looking at the profit you are making. That is about the time to think about creating your own engine...

EDIT: It's Hylomar 3400 Just remembered it!

Edited June 13, 2012 by Exploded

[Gus82]

Comparing Lotus' ability to develop and manufacture engines in the mid 70's or mid 90's to today is fairly pointless. There is a different team of engineers led by Wolf Zimmerman who came from AMG Mercedes who specialise in great engines and during the period when much of the development work was carried out it appears Lotus was well funded. Therefore whether they use the engine is a simple business decision that relates to how much it costs to get it into production and if it is cost effective to produce only for the Esprit etc.

Edited June 13, 2012 by Gus82

[73JPS]

Bibs, I talked to a Belgian dealer, he sold 14 new Esprit V8 in the V8's existence, ALL engines have been overhauled completely, some of them even more than once!!! The V8's were VERY unreliable, certainly if the liners were not put in with the special product they came with later on. I can't remember the name but it was PC 3400 or something. The new engine, as I said before, is something you need when your sales are booming, you have a strong line-up of cars and your eyes are dazzling by looking at the profit you are making. That is about the time to think about creating your own engine...

EDIT: It's Hylomar 3400 Just remembered it!

I would question the reliability of the dealer's assertion, or perhaps more accuratley, I would question its relevance in trying to evaluate the reliability of the V8 engine. One hundred percent of the owners either went to the dealer for or reported to the dealer the necessity of a rebuild? Really? Did all 14 require rebuilds because of catasrophic failures? Is there any record of what was worn on the engines (if anything) when they were torn down? Did the dealer encourage rebuilds to paranoid owners?

One might argue that even one out of fourteen rebuilds would be a terrible rate, but of course you cannot scale statistics from such a small sample size.

[hedgerley]

I think its grossly unfair to compare the development of the Esprit V8 engine, back in the mid '90s, with the situation Lotus found themselves in 2-3 years ago i.e. with a very significant budget, a baseline race derived engine and a effectively a whole new engineering capability led by ex AMG engine guru Wolf Zimmerman. The old V8 was developed on a shoestring budget (I recall a figure of £5m mentioned at the time but that seems ridiculous when I think about it now) for a limited application. The reliability or otherwise of that engine cannot be compared to what Lotus might do now (assuming the programme remains funded and DRB let it continue)

As to my own experience, in 8 years of Esprit V8 ownership averaging 7k miles/year I have only been stranded once and that was due to a failed alternator on my '98, a standard GM part! Yes I had fractured manifold bolts, coolant pipes etc. and had to replace the turbos as they had rotted, but in terms of 'reliability' it never actually failed on me apart from that one occasion.

My current '01 Esprit, at 60k miles, has had no major engine work and is still on its original clutch. In fact its just been serviced and MOT'd - in the past 12 months all I've done is put 2 new rear tires on it. The MOT just needed a couple of corroded brake lines replacing, a new front ball joint and the headlamp adjusting. That's all.

Yes they have to be looked after but my guess is that of the 1600 sold, there are 1600 different owner experiences out there. But Lotus have moved on significantly since those days so let's move forward with them. He said, hopefully.......

[Trevsked]

This forum is littered with V8 owners and its been a long time since I read about one giving sizeable trouble.

Trevor.

[Exploded]

Patrick, the technician at that dealer has the highest certification from Lotus themselves though and has over 26 years experience in working at Lotus (only). He was chief mechanic at a racing team which raced Esprits (first 4 cyl then V8). The problems were in many cases catastrophic. And I must correct myself 1 engine has not been opened, but that Esprit has only 4K kms at the moment...

I don't know if Mike Sekinger is still around, I feel confident Mike will see the numbers I mentioned as exaggerated, but he might accept Kimbers' figures. Let's hope he pops in.

Edited June 13, 2012 by Exploded

[arbell9]

Check out this article on the V8 engine development, from page 9.

"The new Lotus V8 is the result of a 27 month programme which has included more than 30 prototype engines, and over 200,000 miles of testing on five continents."

http://www.docstoc.com/docs/83132806/V8-ESPRIT

[steve930]

Fwiw I think lotus did quite a good job with the 918 engine. Lets not forget that in that era jaguar had liner issues with their v8 engine, bmw also had thesame issue with their v8, porsche had liner issues/oil gallery core plugs falling out/rear crank oil seafoods failing. That's just some off the top of my head & all the makers mentioned probably had much larger r&d budgets than lotus!!

[Mark Blanchard]

Most early V8s that had problems, had their engine's sorted many years ago and subsequent owners haven't had problems. However there was bad press at the time, not something Lotus wants again.

What I would like to see is a new Lotus designed engine that has been fully tested before production and is reliable from the onset. I hope this will happen under the new ownership.

[73JPS]

Patrick, the technician at that dealer has the highest certification from Lotus themselves though and has over 26 years experience in working at Lotus (only). He was chief mechanic at a racing team which raced Esprits (first 4 cyl then V8). The problems were in many cases catastrophic. And I must correct myself 1 engine has not been opened, but that Esprit has only 4K kms at the moment...

I don't know if Mike Sekinger is still around, I feel confident Mike will see the numbers I mentioned as exaggerated, but he might accept Kimbers' figures. Let's hope he pops in.

Gert, thank you for putting a bit more perspective on your info. I wasn't trying to be argumentative as much as I was trying to point out that one cannot draw conclusions from small sample sizes. The numbers Bibs have quoted are likely, at least by sample size, the most accurate, although I suppose they could be tainted by a company trying to downplay problems. Nevetheless, there still needs to be more context to the number of 14 cars with 14 rebuilds. By those numbers one could conclude (though I am not suggesting anyone is!) that the V8 had a 100% failure rate... at least in Belgium.

By the by, and (only slightly) more in keeping with the acutal topic of this post: does Dany have any info on the reliability of the V8? Mark? What's news from the bunker?

[Bibs]

If some of them have been fixed more than once then that's a failure rate of more than 100%, not sure anyone would believe that.

[Moxie]

Bunker broadcast please.

[73JPS]

And please make certain that Dany understands that Hylomar 3400 is not to be apllied to his hair while it is still wet.

Edited June 13, 2012 by 73JPS

[Bibs]

Bunker t-shirt in the offing I think

[DarrylV8]

OOOpppps thought i'd gone to the wrong thread had to check the headline a couple of times!!1

Thought this was about DB being suspended or sacked not V8 engines either Lotus ones or someone elses sorry to be a tw*t but cant we start another thread??

[Bibs]

You need to use the 'start new topic' button but thread drift is nigh on impossible to stop, conversations are inherently dynamic!