New 410 musings - Ex Cayman

[jonnyboy]

Well after a bit of a wait the 410 has finally landed! I thought I would leave a musings thread here as it may help some people go have a look at these cars and see what they are all about. I'm into the Lotus brand in a big way of course as a trader in this arena but I'm not a fanyboy and will offer here some unblinkered views. 

Its booked in for a new car detail/ceramic coat/PPF but first impressions on the coachwork and carbon are very good. I think Lotus have been doing a great job on paint for a while now (go look at a new beemer for comparison!) Carbon bits are first class. 

Inside the general feel of it is very good. The seats are great very good lateral support and haven't been too bad on a 4 hour drive back to base the other day. It has the Alcantara of course which is good and the yellow detailing really sets it off. Points of note in here - plastic on the shroud over the bank of switches either side of the binnacle and the rear of the steering wheel feel a bit cheap. Slightly unfathomable why these parts are not to the same standard as the rest of the dash which is pretty good.  Also as previously mentioned by me on another thread the steering wheel is offset to the left by around 10mm. Exacerbated on the 410 by the centre ring on the steering wheel being out of line with the small speed readout in the middle of the clocks. Small point again but irritatingly pointless when they just redesigned it all! Having had a second drive yesterday its all good not too distracting but if you are a bit picky like me it will bug! 

The one thing I do feel a bit short changed on is the stereo! Its absolutely offensively crap for a car at this price point in fact I would be genuinely disappointed if I bought a van with a system of this quality! I know the old hairy chested argument that in a car like this you listen to the engine (which I will come to later) but no sorry there are times when if you are using the car regularly as I plan to you want a decent sound. The 410 I am told has less sound deadening than normal but interior noise levels are better than the 987 Cayman it replaced so no excuse for the stereo. Subwoofer needs some investigation as I'm not convinced it's working. But the whole stereo has to be removed its literally so poor quality it was hurting my ears. Will get some proper speakers and a better head unit in. The lack of a DAB head unit is not even funny in this day and age. Seriously Lotus come on! 95k RRP. We want Bose/HK even Cambridge audio from richer sounds would be better! 

OK Onto the good stuff and there's a lot of it here that Porker owners reading this need to know about. 

Firstly the noise. Its properly naughty! Interestingly it was a video of the startup noise that first put me onto the 410 as I Was trying to decide which P car would replace my Cayman. Its great on the motorway with the flap closed and just about ok for starting up and driving away from your neighbours but with the flap open it's a well engineered sound for sure. Very different to the flat sound of a P car but just as fruity in a different way. 

On the road wow the body control is superb. I've had chance to drive it on some pretty challenging roads already. It's firm and one of biggest concerns having not driven it before was that it would be too stiff which is a personal bugbear of mine for a road car and it could have seriously affected my being able to gel with it. Thankfully it's perfectly judged and is literally as stiff as it could be without becoming jarring. Firm but fair I would say. Little bit of initial roll on turn in but acceptable for a car of this weight. The chassis is absolutely world class as you would expect. 

Steering....oh boy. How? How is it this good? Why are all power steering cars not this good? My old Cayman was exceptional having ceramic brakes which improve the feel but the Evora is truly exceptional in this area. Having experience of the V6 Exige and how that thing tramlines all over the shop and feels a bit sterile in the steering department it makes me wonder why they don't put this PAS system in the V6. Anyway superb couldn't have asked for more on that front. Feels properly engaging. 

Still obviously running in at the moment bit very much looking forward to being able to use it properly. It hints at being a bit of an animal even up to 4k on a gentle (ish!) throttle. 

Feels appropriately exotic though  looks fantastic and a very worthy successor to the Cayman. Other potential replacements would have been a 981 GTS or possibly a Turbo 991 S but the Evora feels much more of an event than a 981 and its much cheaper than a 991.  Porker owners stuck with a choice of the new Turbo stuff should certainly take a look at the Evora. It's really very very good  properly special car. I'm delighted and relieved in equal measure! 

 

 

[PaulCP]

Excellent write up Jon, at least now you know why a few of us on .org moved to the Evora. Look forward to hearing more from you about it in the weeks to come. (And yes, you are right about the audio shortcomings)

For sure yours is in a different league to mine, but it was the need to keep that great steering feel, coupled with more space and an excellent ride, whilst retaining the ability to have exceptional handling which did it for me.

You also have the benefit of enjoying a great car which is no where near as common as those "P" things. Enjoy the attention you will get when you are out in it 

Oh, and don't forget to put some of the Evora doubters on .org right.

[Stubox]

Great aren’t they ? nice write up .

[Trevsked]

Fab cars, congratulations.

 

Trevor.

[The Pits]

Congrats, I hope you enjoy it as much as I do mine. Glad I didn't bother with the stereo now although the reversing camera would have been quite nice.

Yours might be one of the very last of the original Donato Coco Sport 410s. Future classic! 

[Deuteronomy316]

Great write up indeed. Ex-Boxster guy who can agree on all points, even when compared to the 400.

I thought maybe I had some sub-woofer issues as well or just believing Lotus had absolutely sub-par sound system.  However, after fiddling around with the system, I found that if you move the fade rearward 75% the subwoofer does work. Due to the geometry of the windshield the tweeters do sound too sharp and obnoxious so adjusting it and increasing the mids also helped. In all, it does sound fair. It's not 7 bose speaker good like the Porsche but still passable when needed. Try it let us know what you think. 

Edited March 9, 2018 by Deuteronomy316

[jonnyboy]

OK thanks I'll have a look at that. Theres a chap on the playground that has done the full stereo swap out so will have a look at what he did. I think if it does come out I'll just hand it over to our local in car audio place see what they can do. 

The car is now in the detailers having a 5 year ceramic coat and PPF. Annoyingly I managed to get a small chip on the leading edge of the front clam so we need to touch that in before the film can go on. 

[CocoPops]

The the playground full swap out was in an S1, so slightly different setup.

[21gg]

The s1 was definitely helped by dynomat on the doors.

 

[Solstice]

I had similar thoughts about the steering when I moved from my old 350 to present 400, the Evora feels so much more planted on the road, can't comment on track yet, but have got a north Weald day and silverstone this month, and am looking forward to finding out if the same is true there.

For audio this chap http://carhomestereo.co.uk/exotic-evora/ has done a few 400s, I have had a chat and will probably start by upgrading the speakers / tweeters and see how it sounds from there.

[Bravo73]

2 hours ago, jonnyboy said:

OK thanks I'll have a look at that. Theres a chap on the playground that has done the full stereo swap out so will have a look at what he did. I think if it does come out I'll just hand it over to our local in car audio place see what they can do. 

These should help:

 

[jonnyboy]

Ah will have a read of that cheers 

[Bruss]

I changed the sound system on my S1. Kept just the head unit but changed amps and speakers all the way through. Morel stuff from the states. It has transformed the sound. 

https://www.morelhifi.com/product-category/car-audio/

The Alpine amps and speakers were the lowest grade made to a price for oem that they make, not at all premium.

One of the things that Lotus were doing was connecting the rear out leads from the HU to the sub and not the sub out leads. Why, I don't know, and whether they are now doing it correctly I also don't know. It may be worth just putting a subby track on and playing with the rear faders.

 

[jonnyboy]

Cheers Bruss will try that. I think ultimately I will do something similar to JM but it would be nice to get a setup on the existing stuff thats okay to put me on. Probably wont get chance to do anything with it until we get spring out of the way at work. I guess I'll have to put up with the engine sound until then  

[Bruss]

If you do anything with the speakers one of the best upgrades is to get some sound insulation material from an ice installer and create proper acoustic boxes around the speakers, especially the sub woofer in the rear.

 

 

[Bravo73]

2 hours ago, jonnyboy said:

...but it would be nice to get a setup on the existing stuff thats okay to put me on. 

This might also help then (if that’s what you meant):

 

[Alfa2Evora]

Although I changed the headunit on my S1 (only because the sat nav function on the OE 'Blackbird' unit was so clunky), I'm not bothering upgrading any of the rest of the system as the best sound quality by far for me comes from here...................................................

 

[21gg]

Alfa2evora, your door speakers  are already dynomat mat'd. 

You're welcome ? 

[jonnyboy]

So

Couple of weeks without the car as it was straight in for a ceramic coat. Was supposed to have PPF but we had some issues with the film so need to revisit that when I get chance. 

The detailer echoed my observations on the paint it comes from the factory in a decent state it's certainly better than most production cars these days. 

On with the running in then. It's really hard to resist the temptation to rev it as the noise at 4.5k is superb. Doing a few more miles on the B roads it's good. It's really very good. Lotus need to find a way to get more bums on these seats this is truly a car where the test drive could sell it. I would urge anyone shopping for P cars to at least try to get a steer of one of these cars. The steering is superb as previously mentioned. I have a test route I always take new cars on its a bit of motorway to get there and then about 10 mile cross country over a nice variety of rough and smooth roads, open and tight bends. It's enough to weed out any flaws in the chassis and was the nail in the coffin for my shortly loved foray into the Cayman R. You can still feel every undulation but the control over rough surfaces is there and the steering weights up naturally in faster bends. 

The Pilot sports don't like cold damp tarmac unsurprisingly and early this morning we had a traction control moment coming off a roundabout.  LSD is pretty keen to lock too which is no bad thing. Had a bit of a play with pressures as they felt a bit high. Settled on 33/35 which is a bit under book but it felt more planted than the 36/40 it arrived with!

People's reaction to the car is interesting. Obviously I spend a bit of time driving various cars so you get a bit past noticing people gorping but the Evora seems to attract it's share of attention. I've already been asked if it was a Ferrari : D - interestingly I have experienced something I have never had before....a negative reaction! One of the locals seeming to express his disapproval with a hand signal . Maybe when he's not driving a Passat he drives a Porsche

Anyway I'm pressing on with the running in. Still still under 400 miles. It's booked in for the first service with Oakmere second week in April so need to crack on. 

Unfortunately we do have a couple of issues that Oakmere's have been pretty on the ball with helping to sort. The car was delivered with a bubble on one of the side stripes. Also the rear carbon hatch has a few patches on it where it looks like the lacquer hasn't adhered.  Surprising that it got through QC but it's clearly a manufacturing issue. I'm yet to find out what the solution is to be. Couple of creaks one on the dash one on the drivers doorcard. I'm still upset about the stereo it's jut so awful. I ran through the setup guide above to no avail. The bluetooth doesn't stream music properly either. Really beyond poor for a car at this price point and I can't help but be a little annoyed that it needs another grand spending on it just to get it to where it should be but hey ho it doesn't detract from the fact it's a great car but these little niggles are such easy things to not have with just a bit of effort and may be the kind of small thing that might push someone into a more conventional car. Oh and where are the fecking cup holders?"

 

 

Edited March 22, 2018 by jonnyboy

[PaulCP]

Glad to hear you are enjoying it.  Always good to hear the views of ex P owners

Now, all you need to do is post a review here http://www.vx220.org.uk/forums/forum/3-other-models-brands/ 

[The Pits]

Glad to hear it’s mostly positive. Hopefully bubble in the decal is a doddle to sort but should be a straight swap out for a new carbon tail gate if the laquer’s not right after 400 miles. Can’t see any grounds for quibbling. I’d be interested to see a pic. Have you only just noticed it?

[jonnyboy]

Spotted it the day after collection when dropping at the detailing place. There are 3 patches like this. I certainly hope it will be sorted without any fuss but again one of those simple things that's just a needless problem really.  

[Alfa2Evora]

15 hours ago, jonnyboy said:

Oh and where are the fecking cup holders?"

I've posted this before and I make no apologies for posting it again.

If you've got an Evora, this is the only cup-holder you should ever use.................................................

[jonnyboy]

I get the hairy chested argument but it' odd that the exige gets one. 

[au-yt]

Item 11 page 14.05 of the 400 parts book could have been a more useful one, as my phone won’t stay in there, something to investigate me thinks or modify with a non slip pad.pad

Edited March 24, 2018 by au-yt