Buying A Lotus Elise

[Kris H]

Rob - For that money I'd be heading off to Nick Whale and looking at an S2 111s (although you might have to haggle a bit) which is a good car (I have one and am very happy with it). Bit more power than the standard and if you have to do boring motorway journeys at all, better for that. You're not far off being able to buy a new standard model though I'd say, which means two year warranty and a little more peace of mind. If you are going to a main dealer, it should be Nick Whale in the midlands though, and most folks on here would say the same I am sure.

 

Kristian

[Scott_Mac]

One common misconception too is that "hard use" and trackdays are bad for the cars. This isn't necessarily the case, people who attend trackdays tend to be enthusiasts and consequently care for the car, regular oil changes, brake fluid etc Heel and toeing is kinder to the gearbox etc

 

Also as for hard use, not going regularly over 4-5k RPM can soot up the engine causing more damage than regularly doing so... shock absorbers are another, if you drive around slowly and the shock only moves slightly all the crap that builds up on the piston sits quite far down, so the first big pothole you go down, bang all that crap is now in your shock and they invariably die quite soon... regular "flexing " of them keeps everything in order.

 

So don't necessarily be put off.

 

Beefcake - fancy making this topic sticky as it seems to be quite informative for all??

[simon_prickett]

I'd also say track use is less hard on Elises than other cars - my Elise will do several track days per set of brake pads/tyres/wheel bearings etc, whereas with the Subaru I used to have I used to cane the tyres and brakes every single track day, plus went through some other items that may not be considered consumable eg driveshafts!

 

I bought my Elise for fun and LOTS of track use, so far it's proving very cheap to run.

 

Simon.