132 replies to this topic

[Claws]

Swap you a blue NA?

[LazyDonkey]

You'll have to tear the keys from my cold dead hands.....

[Claws]

[LazyDonkey]

[Claws]

Garage queen That is a great picture!

[LazyDonkey]

Thought i;d update this thread....apologies if you're on SE as well....this is a cross post. 

 

To recap if you can't be arsed reading it all.....after 9 years in a VX220 with a daily driver to compliment it (primera and then Civic type r) work was going well and I thought there would never be a better time to buy a “proper” lotus.  It would be my only car, with the only alternatives being stealing my wife’s car or my motorbike.  I’d already been warned that if I took her car she’d take a taxi and bill me for the journey before trying to squeeze the lotus out of the garage……Better be reliable then!   I live in Glasgow but work in Livingston or London and the plan was to use the car 2/3 days a week to do my 80 mile commute and then use it as required over the weekend.   Man maths said 10k over the first year with us using mrs donkey’s civic for most long journeys.

 

So in June 2014 I took delivery of a 2010 car three owner car (first being a lotus manager) with 30k miles on the clock.  Prior to delivery I asked MMC to fit a new pioneer head unit but other than that it was as it left the factory.  Aspen white, std “long” box, +2 seating, black leather, tech pack, sport pack, xenons, coloured door handles and a reversing camera.   At the time it was one of the cheapest sport and tech pack’d cars in the Lotus dealer network and I was really happy with the price and the service.   All in I think it was about £550 a month over 5 years on hpi with a £5k deposit. I could look up the actual figures, but I'm scared. It was about that. Gulp.  

 

I’m not going to go on about handling, steering feel and all that pish as I’m not the best of fastest driver in the world and you can all read the reviews for yourself.  No, I’m going to talk about living with the car.

 

So 6 months on the man maths is out of the window, I’m using it all the time and I’ve completed 6,900 miles.  In fact we use it almost every time we go anywhere as a couple (no kids, no dog) so much so we’ve swapped the civic for a 500 twin air as it was only being used to trudge across the city.

 

I’ve done everything from a 4 day holiday blasting round Skye to sitting on the m8 in some truly hideous weather and everything I between.  I’ve gone to the dump in it, ive picked up 15 metres of tiles in it.  I’ve basically done everything I would do in any other car. What’s it like?  It’s fcuking fantastic.

 

In those miles I’ve had two problems.    The first is that the reversing camera really doesn't like wet conditions….which is fine if you then get a dry day as it dries out and starts working again….however mine hasn’t been working since mid-November now.   Not the end of the world but mildly annoying.   The other issue is the front of the diffuser / undertray came loose when I was (ahem) making progress one morning and flapped around like a very loud flappy thing.  So I went straight past work (at reduced speed) and onto Lotus dealer (Murrays in Edinburgh) who bolted it back on for nada and sent me on my way.

 

But that doesn’t make sense?  Surely 2010 evoras are utter shite and you need the 2013 before you get anything in the way of build quality?    Not on the basis of my experience.   Yes there are some low volume quirks and yes you can see the interior light glowing through the roof but, undertray aside, nothing has fallen off, nothing has broken and nothing has snapped off in my hand.  The most annoying thing about the car right now is that the gas struts that hold up the engine cover / boot don’t fully hold it up when it’s cold.  So you use the VX / Elise method instead.   That gives you an idea of how hard it is to live with one, when that’s the most annoying bit.  Oh and the windscreen washers are a bit pathetic. Oh and sometimes first to second crunches if you rush it when it's cold.  Hardly earth shattering. 

 

Talking of boxes much is made of the short box being essential but I don't regret getting a long box one....1st and 2nd are identical but the remaining gears are bunched so that 6th in short box is more like 4th in mine.  Plus points of long is that 80mph sees you sitting at 2k which is nice and that 3rd goes from 50mph at 3k to about 120mph when the limiter kicks in (allegedly)  Craig warned me this was addictive and he was right.  

 

Sitting on an A road or motorway it feels like a “normal” car….so much so that my wife often wonders why people are staring, until she remembers we’re in the lotus.  It’s comfy, the air con works, the heater works and I no longer have to spend 5 days warming mrs donkey up to the prospect of going to Inverness in my car.  Then you get to the twisties and it doesn’t feel normal at all.   This morning was a great example, 35 miles of M74 then A71 at fast but not excessive pace listening to radio 4 and keeping up with traffic.   Then you get to the last 5 miles of switchback, the horns come out and the car comes alive.  You arrive at work and you’re grinning like an idiot.

 

Luggage wise hard cases don't really fit in the boot so we bought two 44 litre hold alls which fit perfectly and still leave room for other odds and sods.  Like the vx and Elise you can fit a lot in Id you pack carefully.  You can also get two wheeled hard cases (Think ours are 70 odd litres) on the back seats no problem. 

 

Oh and forgot what it looks like in the pictures, I know some people have said it looks pinched at the nose and some angles don’t work but in the real world, amongst traffic it looks stunning.  NOTHING I’ve driven or sat in has ever generated as much attention and all of it has been positive.   People come up to say hi in petrol stations, I know ALL of my neighbours as they come out to chat when I wash it and everyone in my work knows it’s my car and wants to chat about it.  In contrast only serious petrol heads even commented on the vx. 

 

Running cost wise it’s booked in for a service a week today but don’t anticipate any problems.   I’m averaging 27.5mpg calculated (compared to 30.5 with civic) with a high of 30.6 and a low of 24mpg.   Motorway work with the long box sees 30mpg quite easily.   I was initially scared of some of the stories about tyre wear but I took the p zeros off after 5k miles and they still had plenty of tread left on them, currently running Yoko W drives over the winter which are great when the temp drops but a bit squirmy this morning when it was around 8 degrees.  I’ve got the standard 18” / 19” wheels and the winters were £750 for a full set and the summers are £110 for the OEM spec fronts and £180 for rears. 

 

So what’s next?   Well I’ll be honest I’m a bit worried about the rate I’m pilling the miles on but the plan is to keep running it every day until April / May at which point Donkey Jnr is scheduled to make an appearance.   This probably means more time in Scotland, more miles to work and back and it definitely means we’ll need something bigger than a 500 now and again.  

 

The obvious thing to do at that point would be to sell the evora and buy an RS4 but I’ve never been one for the most travelled road so the current plan is to buy a £4k focus and focus. (!)  all of my attention on keeping the evora.     Group 0 child seats don’t fit in the back but group 1 (9 months and above) do and my two nieces (5 and 11) were very comfy and happy in the back when I tested it for size.   No it’s not a family car but hopefully I’ll be able to keep it a bit longer as I just don’t think I can be parted with it.

 

Hope this helps – I’ll update this thread later if it’s helpful. 

[ChrisS1]

Excellent real world review. Sounds like you make a great choice.

 

My lad has just turned 1, so if you want to use my 130i for 9 months and I'll make do with the Evora then PM me

[KurtVerbose]

Great read, thanks!

[KurtVerbose]

LazyDonkey - is this you?

[siztenboots]

what are evora prices doing at the moment?

[G-Bob]

LazyDonkey - is this you?

 

Yup, that's him.  

[LazyDonkey]

Yup that's me. Prices seem pretty firm, come the summer my car would retail around what i paid for it last year according to dealer. Entry level is still around £30k but there's a definite premium for well known cars and those with tech and sport packs. All the press around the new model plus the fact the new one will start with a 7 can only make that better. For lotus it's all about getting people into the car. My car has been pimped around loads of people who are currently sitting in an elise / vx a chassis and all have been very impressed. They just need to keep adding dealers and ensuring they have demos (in the bahar era my local dealer couldn't get customer cars within 4 months of the allocated build date let alone demos!) No car is a safe place to put your money but the evora looks a lot safer than most.

Edited by LazyDonkey, 20 February 2015 - 07:56 AM.

[Ormes]

Nice review and glad to hear you are loving it so much

[rob999]

All those VX references meant it had to be Martin! Nice write up

[LazyDonkey]

Time to update this thread as I’ve just completed 12 months with the evora and I just missed out on hitting 10k, think the final tally was 9,800 and something 

 

So after a whole year, what’s the consensus?

 

It’s still amazing.   In fact, my love for this car still keeps growing though.  Took a colleague out for a shot at lunchtime on Friday and it was brilliant seeing the reaction of someone who’s used to a fast car (XFR and M3 before that) seeing what the evora can do.   Still takes me by surprise when you REALLY push it too.  It’s just so composed and so effortless when it comes to going fast…..but can still thrill when you want.  Took it to KH at the March SIDC day and it was stunning in the soaking wet conditions with the brakes and stability being real stand out features.

 

But you know all that right?  You want to know what reliability was like don’t you?

 

Well it’s never failed to start, never failed to complete a journey and never caused me to do a Basil Faulty at the side of the road……but there has been one issue that did furrow my brow a bit.

 

Basically it lunched it’s air con.  It happened (ahem) at speed somewhere in Fife and it started with a rather nasty noise and a “spanner” symbol on the dash.  Car drove fine though and the warning symbol disappeared after a couple of mins.  Quick call to Craig and he suspected an issues with the exhaust that my car has recently had fitted.   Thought no more of it and booked it in to get checked.   Ran it for a fortnight and didn’t notice the air con wasn’t working until just before I dropped it into MMC. Assumed the issues weren’t related…….then I got “the phone call” from Craig.

 

Air con condenser had sprung a leak, probably due to corrosion on a part that looks similar “quality” to OEM elise / vx rads.  A quick google shows I’m not alone and worst case a new one was £150 from elise shop.  Job’s a carrot.   3^rd party warranty (as I’d bought car from murrays) said they’d cover it and we were off.   Only we weren’t.  Looks like the condenser running dry also lunched the compressor.  Which is where it got more complicated. If I was paying myself I could go onto the SELOC wiki, get the denso part number (off a v6 petrol Rav4) and import one from the states for around £300.  However via the turnip famers they want, wait for it, £1,600 plus vat.  Jeesh.  Mr warranty man then had a meltdown and started being a right dick about it.  Some weeks passed and it was eventually sorted by Craig doing his usual above and beyond and the car was returned to me with lovely cold air pumping out the vents.  Checking the forums it seems condenser failure is pretty common amongst early cars but the compressor is much more rare.   And being positive if I’d paid for it myself then it wouldn’t have been disastrous but it was a bit of a black mark on the car.

 

Aside from that problem, the wire mesh on the vents and the front grill went a bit rusty after a year exposed to salty roads and the protection film on one of the headlamps lifted and needed to be replaced.   Oh and in the last week some of the LEDs on the nearside rear light has started to fail…..as they do on Exige and Elise sometimes.  Annoying right now but not terrible and not expensive to fix.

 

This means over 10k and 12 months I’ve had the following issues;

-          Reversing camera failed (TADTS)

-          Undertray rattled loose

-          Air con issues above

-          Rusty grills

-          Headlamp lacquer / protective film issue

-          One rear lamp has 4 missing LEDs

 

For me that’s not too bad for a 2010 car and it’s certainly a lot better than 99% of people I know expected    I know a few evora owners and my experience doesn’t seem to be unusual.  Yes there are niggles but the cars seem dependable.  Mr Pops recently had an issue with his but he can fill you in on that. 

 

MPG averaged 27mpg over my year, with highs of 34 and lows of 23 or so.   Not disastrous.    Resale wise I’m getting into itchy bum territory at 40k as I’m in the upper quartile of evoras the age of mine but I’d still be confident to get a trade in of around very high 20’s…..which I consider to be amazing.    Summer tyres have done around 6k and aren’t on the indicators yet.  Discs and pads are in great condition and it uses no oil at all.    I was craving more exhaust noise from my standard car but didn’t want to spend £1k so Craig managed to source me a used MY13 Exige S exhaust which means one less cat and a noisy / loud valve.  Not the easiest job in the world but now he’s done one he’d happily do another.  Car now sounds like a MY13 car with the sport mode on all the time (it’s not switchable in my car) and it’s transformed the car.  Not too loud at speed but has a lovely burble at town speeds and a rear scream at high revs.

 

So can you run an evora every day?   Yes you absolutely can.  It will handle everything you can throw at it and based on my experience it’s highly unlikely to let you down.  The car generates a HUGE amount of attention on the road but it’s all positive and everyone seems genuinely curious to chat about the car.   It will do the boring motorway slog and then come alive on the twisty bits. 

 

Ok so why did you buy a sh*t Astra? 

 

Hmmm, well this is the tricky bit.   So you CAN run the car every day and you it won’t let you down…….but very few people are doing 300 miles a week in them and as such you get some serious raised eyebrows when you start talking resale.  I know Simon George in EVO has ranted about similar things, you can put big miles on a Porsche and no-one minds but do the same on a Ferrari or a lambo and people sh*t the bed.   Seems like we can add evora to that list.   Not a problem if you think “fcuk it I’ll never sell” but I thought that with the vx and then had to try and sell that with 90k on the clock    For me the car is a massive indulgence and if something changed at work or at home that caused me to think I needed to cut back the evora would be on a shoogilly nail.   You could argue that even a massively high mileage car still depreciates less than an A5 or similar and I know what Murrays paid for a 75k mile example…….but it’s still a risk.     

 

So I needed to drop my miles a bit and to add to that there was my impending (now arrived) first born.  Something needed to be done.  I could have sold the evora after a cracking few months and bought something to do fun and practical but after looking about I simply couldn’t do it, so  I decided to sell my bike and buy a sh*t astra to do the mundane work and leave the evora as the fun car.   It’s also got 5 doors and a big boot for my bikes.  Finally it means Mrs Donkey can keep her beloved 500.   Even with the astra I’m still planning to do around 7-8k miles a year. 

 

[font="calibri, sans-serif;"]So there you go – hopefully that’s been of use to some people, thanks for reading  [/font]

Edited by LazyDonkey, 06 July 2015 - 09:18 AM.

[ChrisS1]

Great informative write up. Thanks

[KurtVerbose]

Great informative write up. Thanks

[PaulCP]

Bugg@r, that's caused my itch to come back😉 Must resist scratching😛😛

[CocoPops]

You can try and scratch it in Spa Paul Just a few weeks to go

[PaulCP]

Hmmm, you will have to convince Sue to allow me to remove the knitted mittens she is making me wear😄😄😄😄 Pleased you got yours sorted in a satisfactory way, I had been following your progress on the Evora forum😉

Edited by PaulCP, 06 July 2015 - 12:41 PM.