Martin G

Its been ages since I've posted anything on MLOC, in fact September 2009 seems to be my last entry. I'm still enjoying life with my Elise, a red 58 reg R on a private plate, with a Pipercross kit. I've done just over 13k miles, so am on my second set of rear tyres and heading for my second service. Having bought the car new from Stratstone Leicester, I decided to try Lotus Silverstone for the first service. They are about the same 35 miles from home and offered a more interesting choice of courtesy car. I was very happy with the Silverstone guys and enjoyed a day in their MX5. However the journey home was a traffic nightmare on the A5, so when it came to new rear Yokos just before Christmas, I swapped back to Stratstone in Leicester. They were really quick and it was good to see Andy who sold me the car again. Also, they are only 25 miles from my new office at Binley Business Park in Coventry. So, life with an Elise.... We have four cars in the family at the moment. The main family load lugger is a Honda CRV iDTEC auto, a superb family car much maligned in the motoring press, but more fool them. My daughter has an 02 Punto and the gang is completed by my our Toyota Aygo. The Aygo is really the other half of the Elise! It does the town trips and dropping off and collecting of kids when the Elise won'tt do. All in they cars complement each other and I can't imaging many people have a CRV, an Aygo and an Elise! The best times with the Elise are summer evenings with the roof off on a cross country run. Where it is less good is on a long motorway run. Last summer when it was really hot, I went up to the Peaks with the roof off on the M1 and the wind noise was deafening! On the return trip, the roof stayed off and I came home on A and B roads. That's what its all about. My original plan was to keep the Elise for three years. I've now started the third year and unusually. I'm not bored. There are still loads of things we want to do with the Elise. I have to try a track day, I want take it to France and the road trip to Skye still has to happen. Family illness played a part last year, so hopefully we can do more in 2011.

Stone chips have become the biggest issue with my 8 month old Elise. I've decided just to live with it and use a touch up pen. The worst place for stone chips is the edge by the air intakes behind the doors, right next to where the film on my car stops. I concluded that Ventureshield would not work here?

I've had my Elise for 8 months now and am up to about 5,800 miles. Its still going really well and I feel very comfortable that it will not bite me unless I do something really stupid! Had a new hood under warranty a few weeks ago and they sorted a brake recall at the same time. My nearest dealer is in Leicester, 40 miles from work, which is a pain though. Still not done a track day yet, I guess that will have to be next year now. The car gets loads of nice comments from all sorts of people and unlike my TT, people will let me out of junctions! Had to call AA out the other day. My mate's knee had somehow knocked the hazard flashers and jammed the button, so the indicators stopped working. Took the AA man all of 30 secs to sort. Been reading the Best of Evo mag that has just been published. I like the way they say the Veyron and Zonda handle like an Elise

It's been a couple of months of trouble free motoring in the Elise since my last blog. I've got into Twittering in the meantime (www.twitter.com/martingibbs) Mileage now nearly up to 4,000, well and truly run in and nicely loosened up. Doing about 250 miles everytime before the fuel light comes on and then it takes about 35 litres to fill up, which is 32mpg. We had a great day in the Peak District last weekend, blasting about on a Phil & Kirsty style property hunt. Had to keep the roof on though, but was pretty refined on the M1. Yesterday was roof off all day, pottering around to parents. Today we went to a Christening near Dorridge. Roof off all day, sunshine and sunburn as well. One of those days you buy an Elise for. I sent off the paperwork on Friday, so very soon I will have my private plate on the Elise. Biggest problem at the moment is stone chips. Masses of them on the sills and chin. Driving me nuts. The paint just seems to fall off if the car so much as sees a bit of grit. Never had this problem with a car before. Getting good with touch up paint though.