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New 410 musings - Ex Cayman


jonnyboy

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It's a good 'hijack' mate! 😊

... a small continuance if I might add to...

Yes, Saturday was one of the best driving days ever! Reminded me of driving in the UK 40 years ago... no traffic!!!

You speak about the N/A, yes it just feels perfect on the twisties... 2nd gear out of corners is awesome, grip is insane. I have had to change my driving style a bit as there is SO much modulation available through the big AP's that getting maxi braking whilst heel/toe is a lot more challenging that I ever found on the Elise/Exige. I think you need the whole foot on the brake pedal to get the most from it! Boy do they brakes work! Also, it's too 'easy' to change up and then stay in 3rd with all the torque, rather than dropping back into 2nd with all that lovely noise power up top... but either way works well, the latter sounds better!

I love the way you can make the car 'dance' through corners with just a little lift off/power on... she is so responsive! Rear's scrabbling for grip at times but the Pirelli P Zero are bloody awesome tyres! Turn in... epic!

About 500 miles in her now, still learning how the likes to be treated! So if my N/A is like this, I can only imagine how the 410/430 must be! As you say, a sanity/licence challenger! Must have a go soon! 😎

My BEST Lotus yet! 

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  • 4 weeks later...

Well I am now Evoraless. 

My car has gone back to the supplying dealer. For how long I do not know.  I have not got a loan car of any sort at the moment despite being promised one.  

Not impressed at all to be honest and not sure at this stage if I'll ever see it again we will see what happens with the repairs.  Lotus have made early noises about not replacing the roof which looks crap with the defects in it. 

We will see what happens but at the moment confidence levels are low in the whole process. 

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Embarrassing...sorry to hear this.

2022 Cadillac CT5-V Blackwing (MT) ◄ 2017 Lotus Evora 400 (SOLD) ◄ 2013 Lotus Evora S (SOLD) ◄ 2005 Lotus Elise (SOLD) ◄ 1991 Mitsubishi 3000GT VR-4 (SOLD)

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Sorry to hear this Jon. But I can assure there are plenty of Porsche owners out there with sorry tales too! And McLaren, Ferrari, Lamborgini too.....

On a brighter note, when do you think the new seat brackets will be ready? I fancy an unpainted pair as I will be finishing them in a different colour to black.  I saw the new VX diffuser on Saturday at Anglesey. Bloody lovely mate so will be having one of those too...

I came into this world screaming and covered in someone elses blood. I'll probably leave it in the same way. 

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Was speaking to my dealer yesterday in general, part of the issue Jonny is that it would appear that Lotus do not keep the carbon panels/bits as stock items but they are ordered as part of the production process - so not forecasted but based on actual car orders. So, when you need a replacement panel it will be added to the next production order and made up for the car. Hence the delay.

So, I can understand the frustration but at the same time I can also understand why Lotus does not want to hold stock of thousands£ worth of carbon pieces from a space and financial point of view.  It is prudent management but of course when you need a "spare" piece it means a lengthy delay which is not good customer service.

Now, given that Lotus makes in total what, 1700 cars per year, and Porsche makes around 250,000 cars a year this is where the comparisons between the two fall down for me.  You just cannot compare reasonably. 

No excuses for Lotus if they commit to something, a date or a replacement or whatever and then do not deliver on that commitment.

I came into this world screaming and covered in someone elses blood. I'll probably leave it in the same way. 

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  • Gold FFM

This thread is quite sad really. I had a large number of well documented issues with my car when new, and I had hoped Lotus were improving things.

Lotus can't compete with big marques on certain things (eg. integrated ICE), but almost all of the problems I hear about they CAN and SHOULD fix. Most of it seems to be piss poor quality control rather than anything else.

Unfortunately Lotus aren't in stupendous demand, so why the factory can't spend an extra few hours getting each car right I do not know. From a business perspective it must be a lot cheaper to fix these cars BEFORE the customer gets them.

James Martin (JayEmm)
Director of Photography & Car Enthusiast

Follow my Lotus adventure online! www.jayemm.com

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48 minutes ago, JayEmm said:

This thread is quite sad really. I had a large number of well documented issues with my car when new, and I had hoped Lotus were improving things.

Lotus can't compete with big marques on certain things (eg. integrated ICE), but almost all of the problems I hear about they CAN and SHOULD fix. Most of it seems to be piss poor quality control rather than anything else.

Unfortunately Lotus aren't in stupendous demand, so why the factory can't spend an extra few hours getting each car right I do not know. From a business perspective it must be a lot cheaper to fix these cars BEFORE the customer gets them.

I think this can be squarely blamed on JMG, he was the one to reduce Lotus down to a shoe string and to cost cut at every corner. Say what you want about Bahar but one thing he was all for, was quality going out of the door. Things are rapidly changing at Lotus now Geely are steering the ship so this aspect will 100% change I would expect.

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  • Gold FFM

I suspect you're right Wayne, and that echoes things I have heard from the factory.

More than one tale of "this was pointed out during QC but we were told we couldn't fix it"

James Martin (JayEmm)
Director of Photography & Car Enthusiast

Follow my Lotus adventure online! www.jayemm.com

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36 minutes ago, JayEmm said:

More than one tale of "this was pointed out during QC but we were told we couldn't fix it"

This is absolutely not the case, Lotus would not PTS a car with known defects. It's more likely that faults aren't spotted by QA due to time constraints placed upon them under JMG's reign. 

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There should not be a time constraint on QA. Cars either come out the factory right, or wrong. If there is a problem, it should be fixed. Lotus have a factory full of world class people, who are made to look bad by management because they aren't given the time to do their jobs properly. This is the sort of thing I hope is in the process of changing.

If you want to charge six figures for these kinds of cars, you need to be putting some serious attention in to the build process. Those who have had faith to part with serious money should be rewarded for doing so, not left there questioning whether they were stupid for not going with the obvious German alternative.

If you try and hurry these cars, that's when things go wrong. TVR had exactly the same problem when their sales went up in the 90s - they suddenly started selling 5x as many cars as they had - but they had the same number of people and time to build them, so quality rapidly went downhill (and there were other factors of course, and I don't think comparing Lotus and TVR has ever been fair).

Incidentally, I have had a much better time having my problems dealt with of late than some of my friends with cars from well respected volume brands. That doesn't change the fact I wish I didn't have to deal with it at all.

James Martin (JayEmm)
Director of Photography & Car Enthusiast

Follow my Lotus adventure online! www.jayemm.com

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Taken from Top Ger mags review of the McLaren 570S Spider V R8 and MG GT and could have been written about a Lotus Evora 410!!!

 

"The McLaren suffers no such ergonomic clangers, besides taking practice to scramble in and out of, but suffers the usual frozen touchscreen, disobedient windows, a dodgy noselift and narcoleptic parking sensors. £227k, as tested, with all the carbon trimmings? Hmm.

The McSpider has a simple question for you. Is your priority driving? If ‘yes’, it’s tough to fault the McLaren. Its steering communicates so purely about the surface, the grip and your proximity to its limits."

 

I came into this world screaming and covered in someone elses blood. I'll probably leave it in the same way. 

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I found the steering in the McLaren 570 to be absolutely stunning, possibly even better than my Lotus (but perhaps it was just faster, I need more seat time to tell).

The McLaren unfortunately fell well short of the "experience" side for me, the engine sounded quite monotone compared with the Lotus. Considering how "ordinary" the Evora's engine is, and how "exotic" the 570's is, it really shouldn't be like that.

And yeah, I hear frequently about build and QC issues with McLarens. I wasn't happy with them at £70k on the Lotus, I'd be incandescent if I had paid a quarter of a million quid on a car with those kind of issues.

James Martin (JayEmm)
Director of Photography & Car Enthusiast

Follow my Lotus adventure online! www.jayemm.com

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2 hours ago, JayEmm said:

I suspect you're right Wayne, and that echoes things I have heard from the factory.

More than one tale of "this was pointed out during QC but we were told we couldn't fix it"

It concerns me when a person on a open forum mentiones what a employee or employess as told them and which as obviously been told in confidence be it true or not, then for that person to repeat the same in a open debate. It's not good you are potentially putting future sales of that company at risk or even worse putting a employee at risk of disciplinary action. I am not trying to defend Lotus in any way but the way for customers to try and there problems resolved is by keeping to the facts and not listening to ear say which in most cases only does harm to all parties involved.

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  • Gold FFM

Scott, I can state facts and Lotus would ignore them. I don't think you need to worry about anyone at the factory getting in trouble on my account.

I have aired my grievances privately with them in the past and it makes little to no difference.

Let's hope going forward we have far more people echoing @tim_marra's experience, and less of mine, Jonny, Anthony, etc...

James Martin (JayEmm)
Director of Photography & Car Enthusiast

Follow my Lotus adventure online! www.jayemm.com

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Lotus management have had plenty of opportunity to change their approach over the years. James isn't the first to have informed them of their shortfalls and won't be the last. Anything that various management types and shop floor guys have said to me are added together to generate the overall picture. Obviously from recent comments on here it's the same old, same old. They don't appear to be capable of changing the cycle of producing such fantastic handling cars without failing the QC requirements, possibly due to a lack of continuity as well as the obvious lack of resources. As the price to the customer increases, less and less of us will accept that compromise of failed QC for the joys of driving a Lotus.  Perhaps Lotus have it right and there is too much money out there, and there is a market for expensive and poorly produced cars but I don't see it.

 

 

 

 

 

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5 minutes ago, Bruss said:

Perhaps Lotus have it right and there is too much money out there, and there is a market for expensive and poorly produced cars but I don't see it.

It works OK for McLaren.

I came into this world screaming and covered in someone elses blood. I'll probably leave it in the same way. 

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18 minutes ago, C8RKH said:

It works OK for McLaren.

Ouch... 😄

2022 Cadillac CT5-V Blackwing (MT) ◄ 2017 Lotus Evora 400 (SOLD) ◄ 2013 Lotus Evora S (SOLD) ◄ 2005 Lotus Elise (SOLD) ◄ 1991 Mitsubishi 3000GT VR-4 (SOLD)

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I feel very sorry for jonnyboy that his experience and service received seems so poor. But hopefully this will be one of the things that the increase in Employment and cash injection from Geely will tackle 🙂

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I really hope that jonnyboy  gets everything  sorted out to a satisfactory  outcome  to retain a bit faith in the brand. As said above let's hope lotus get there act together pronto and get quality issues sorted otherwise they are In trouble with the 'new 2020 cars' . I think Geely will sort it but it's going to take time.  

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4 minutes ago, marcfair said:

 I think Geely will sort it but it's going to take time.  

Give them a chance to get settled in

I came into this world screaming and covered in someone elses blood. I'll probably leave it in the same way. 

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