Buying a Lotus Elise this summer...need some info.

I will by getting a used (2005-2006) Lotus Elise this summer. I will get the base model...not the SC or the Exige...just the base Elise. I have never owned a Lotus before (or any sports car for that matter) and I wanted to know if there is anything I should look out for. (i.e. technical problems, certain model year to stay away from, etc.) All information is greatly appreciated.

Thank you very much,
-G.B.

 

Have you ever driven a fast sports car? The car is really nice, light, and fast.

John

 

Have fun it is a great car to drive. It is not a really long road trip car but it makes up for it when the amount of fun it provides. As far as technical issues I have not seen too many. I had one car blow the oil cooler line off. That sucked to replace. I also had one with an imobiliser issue. That has been really the extent. Just window adjustment here and there and a couple really simple campaigns that need to of been done. Have fun.

 

No...I've never driven a fast sports car. I'm 16. My dad wants to buy me one for a present if I get a certain GPA. I get to drive it all summer and during the weekends when I don't have school.

Thanks for the valuable information!

 

You should love it. It is a very cool car.

John

 

elisetalk.com is a great resource.

I have an 05 Elise after being on the waiting list for a couple of years when they first came here. You should like it, but don't expect it to be like a boxster or miata. Think go-kart.

No real change 05 to 06, I think 06 got LED brake lights. Bits of trim etc. do tend to fall off but the mechanicals are sound. If you get a late enough 06 it would still be in warranty (3 years/50K I think) which would give you some peace of mind.

 

Thanks. I've always loved the car.

Thanks for the info. This really helps. Enhoy yours in good health!

-G.B.

 

Sorry to be a killjoy but I'm speaking as a father here - not a car enthusiast. Somehow the idea of a relatively inexperienced driver aged 16 driving a high performance sports car doesn't give me a lot of comfort. I'd ask dad to enroll you in some professional driving schools first and have you drive a more modest car until you gain some real life experience. A Mazda Miata may not be as sexy as a Lotus, but it will be a great training platform and the Miata is a very capable car both on and off the track. More importantly the performance envelope is not as broad as a Lotus, and is likely a more appropriate learning tool.

Sorry to be the only negative voice here, but I'd feel far better having the knowledge that you were properly trained in a low risk learning environment, like a controlled track day, than to have a highly focused sports car as your first ride. When you combine that concern with your comments that you'll only ride it during the summer, I wonder if you will have enough experience to know what to do in an emergency situation.

Think of it as you would your education. Could you pass a college level math class without having the proper foundation? Yes, you could, but you would probably do a lot better if you had the full foundation of classes behind you to give you the understanding you could build upon for that class. Maybe it's a bad analogy, but I view driving high performance cars the same way - training, practice and confidence gained by proper instruction in a controlled environment.

Be well and safe, regardless of what you and your parents decide.

 

I appreciate your insight. This is not my first car. I will be 17 when I get the Elise. I have a Jeep Wrangler 5-speed that I drive every day. I have taken some skid control clinics and have been driving since I was 13 (on neighborhood streets with my dad in the passenger seat). I will not take this car to school...just use it on the weekends. I hope this "comforts" you. lol. Thanks again for your insight.

-G.B.

 

G.B. -

Frankly, no, I don't have any comfort from your last post. You've been driving since you were 13 with your dad in the right seat, and now you'll be 17 and drive a 5 speed jeep. That statement flat our scares me, and if you think about it, it should scare you too. What bothers me even more is what if when you were driving as a 13 year old you lost control and hit me, or anyone else. Forget the legal issues, what if you hurt yourself or someone else - would you still think that your actions didn't involve anyone but you?

I don't know where to start, but trust me a 5 speed Jeep has very little in common with a sports car. The Lotus turns like a go cart, nothing like what you are driving now. You frankly don't know what you don't know.

I truly hope this post is a "troll", just trying to get a rise out of me. If it is, you succeeded. If it isn't I hope that you'll be around and healthy to continue the debate in the future. Good luck, but I couldn't disagree with you more.

I'll end it here, I was young once too. The point is I'm now old - and I want you to get to be old too.

 

I truly appreciate your concern.

-G.B.

 

G.B.

Take it from a guy who got his first sports car at 17 (a Dakar Yellow 3.0L Z3 BMW, 225hp). Not a great idea.

While you may personally have the ability to drive a car on a closed course (which, I highly doubt as I grew up in/around sports cars and surely didn't), you can't account for other drivers. Experience, not drivers ability, is what keeps you alive on the road. In a small car like an Elise (a car which, coincidentally, is on my short list to own) puts you in a position of danger. SUVs and trucks can't see you, cops aim for you, street racers want a piece. Get something more practical, really master driving, take a few driving/racing courses, and wait a couple of years.

I ended up getting a 89 in a 35 in my car within a couple months of getting it - getting towed, brought to court, etc.. Will H(countachxx) taught me from an early age that speeding on the street is absolutely pointless if you can hit the track..

Keep the Wrangler, get a spec Miata / S2000, hit the local SCCA drivers ed events, and learn to extract the most performance. It'll be far more rewarding -- and infinitely safer.

Shoot me a PM and we can discuss more if you'd like.

--Kenny

 

...the elise is very raw - probably the most minimal street car in current production - and that pure driving experience coupled with its world-class handling is the essence of its appeal, but also what turns away most prospective drivers who expect to be coddled in a modern vehicle...it will drive in a completely different world from your jeep, heck, it's a league removed from all but the very most rarified sportscars, and even long-experienced daily drivers can quickly get in over their heads if they don't treat that distinction with due respect as they learn to read the car's feedback and probe its limits...

...because it's such a simple, lightweight car, it's suprisingly affordable to maintain, but because it's an exotic precision instrument, it also can be devastatingly expensive to repair: a lotus is not a forgiving car for major learning-experience mistakes...at your age, you can expect to pay four figures per month for reputable insurance, so be certain take that expense into consideration, as well as the fact that nearly all young drivers will be involved in a collision at some point, and it doesn't take much damage at all to total one of these fragile cars...

...the only major difference amongst naturally-aspirated cars is the throttle system: 2005 cars use a mechanical throttle, while 2006 and newer cars are all drive-by-wire, which carries some significant tuning implications...the early 2005 cars feature dual oil coolers while the later cars all have single oil coolers, but that doesn't make a noteworthy difference in operating temperatures outside of a track environment...

...honestly, you'd be far better-served buying an inexpensive used MR2 or miata and putting the difference in price toward track time...racing is a very expensive hobby, but four to six years later you'll come out of college a far better driver than ninety-nine percent of the exotic owners on this forum, fully capable of extracting and appreciating the limits of performance on one of the very best driver's cars in the world...

...as mentioned above, lotustalk.com is a great resource for more detailed information - i've just about put seventy thousand miles on my elise, and my experience is a pittance by comparison to what you'll find over there...

 

...also, as mentioned above, it's imperative to recognise that you don't know what you don't yet know...your experiences to date driving your jeep, even practicing skid control, will have trained certain reflexes which are exactly the opposite of what you'll need to control a lightweight mid-engined car in emergency situations: read about snap oversteer for just one small example of the many performance quirks for which a driver needs to develop intuitive comprehension in order to properly handle one these cars...

 

Of course your going to do what you want and I highly doubt that a few opinions posted on an internet forum are going to change that. The elise is a beautiful car and by all accounts one of the most pure sports car experiences you can get. I think it says a lot that your dad trusts you enough to buy you such a car and let you drive it on the weekends...etc. Im sure that your father both knows and cares about you more than anyone else on this board and if he is well off enough just to buy an elise as a gift for good grades then id assume he is in his right state of mind.

I certainly understand most of the concerns on here. I know that growing up in a small town my dad would let me take the truck around the neighborhood when I was a young kid. No harm done right?....well I also understand that if I would have done something stupid then my dad and I would have both been in lots of trouble. Also the idea of a thirteen year old driving around wouldnt set well with me if my family was on the same road.

My dad trusted me with a much less capable sport car...and of course...I almost killed myself. Now at 22 I decided to give it another go and bought myself a s2000. Im by no means an old man but I can tell you at 17 I was a completely different person. Going out and racing cars on public roads, donuts in a mall parking lot, and pushing it well past the speed limit at night no longer interest me as much. I can say that yes at times when the road opens up just right I get the urge to punch it for a few 100 feet...and sometimes it gets the best of me. Although now my thoughts are haunted of people I have known who have died just for dumb stuff. People who could here but arent just because they decided to push down a little metal peddle to far.

Either way if you do decide to go with the Elise treasure it and treat it with respect. Take the time to get to know the car and dont let those desires to rev the hell out of it get the best of you.

Its a beautiful car and plenty of people twice your age would love to get behind the steering wheel of it. So I hope the best for you and look forward to seeing where this goes.

 

I truly appreciate your guys' concern. I know that 16/17 year olds ar NOTORIOUS for speeding, wreckless driving, etc. I have never gotten a speeding ticket or been in an accident. However, I do understand that anything can happen at any given time. I do not plan to be a show off with this car. The reason I chose the Elise is because I wanted something DIFFERENT than what everyone else had. I do plan to track this car, but I will not do so until I receive the proper training. I will use this car for nice little cruises around Lake Tahoe (I live in Reno, NV) and cruises up to Virginia City. I will NOT, by ANY means, street race with someone; I will not speed on public roads.

I hope this helps, and once again, I truly appreciate your guys' concern and insight.

Thank you very much,
-G.B.

 

There are some things you say you will not do, however you haven't been tempted yet. When you are in that driver's seat, you will be tempted. There's no doubt about that.

Take classes now. Rent a Miata at a local track and get an instructor. Just throw yourself in the deep end. It is far more safer on the track in a rented track car than an Elise on public roads. I'm not concerned that you will get tickets, because you will. You will be spotted, followed, harassed and eventually ticketed. That's just the fact of owning a sportscar at a young age.

The car is relatively safe, but any minor accident can be devastating to the pocketbook. Even so much as hitting a curb can crack a clamshell, and those aren't cheap. Look up on Elisetalk and find out the cost of replacing the clamshells, various pieces that break and you'll have a bit more respect (i.e. - not going too wild on the streets) for the car when you do have it.

Look into the costs of tires as well. You cannot cheap out on tires with this car. If you do, it will bite you... hard. The R compounds from the factory do not carry a lot of miles, but more miles than other cars wrapped in R compounds due to the weight of the car. Don't expect to get 10K miles on the tires. It will not happen.

 

have any prospect carefully insepcted for any frame damage, as frame repair cannot be safely done on these cars. Otherwise there are no serious problems with the car that I know of. I have had an '05 elise for over 4 years and still love it. The Toyota drivetrain is very robust and you should be able to find a very nice example for well under $30K

 

If this is not a troll it may be a terrible idea. Like you when I was 16 I thought I was more mature then the rest. I wanted to be different as well. So I bought a mini cooper s. The mini was to tempting for even me, and shortly after I wound up with my first speeding ticket(65 in a 50). Then a few months later I nearly totaled my car. This was in a mini cooper, which can hardly compare to what the Elise would be like.

 

Great post

 

I say get it and drive it like crazy.

 

Go to a lotus forum... try lotustalk. Use the search function and just read up on old threads.

 

Thank you all for your insight and opinions.

-G.B.

 

advice from someone who got his son a new s4 when he tured 17. i made the decision based on awd, stab control, crash test data. elise is a mistake for a teenage driver. i have seen them wreck on track and it is not a pretty site. safety was definitely not a big issue for lotus in engineering elise. mid engine and rwd without stability control is just plain crazy for teenager.

 

95spiderman - I agree. I've also seen them crashed at the track. It is a relatively safe car, but if he does get the car, I just hope his insurance is up to date (medical) and he has AAA. Even a fender bender will need to be towed.