Commiserate with me - I shouldn't buy a Lotus Elise, Update: But I just did.

[_Rick_]

I doubt it's not down to an electrical issue, as it's usually linked to getting a jump-start. The ECU really doesn't appear to like that.
Cleaning the MAF sensor (and its contacts, because English) is probably sound advice regardless.

Pretty sure, there's no accordion part on this intake boot - previous owner just bolted a huge K&N straight onto what I assume to be the throttle body. Classic "Hot Air Intake"-mod

 

[Fritzo]

So, one of the recurring issues is that she likes to stall out, recently. No CEL, so I don't think looking into OBD2 will get me miles ahead.
This happened when she was cold, earlier in the year, two or three times, and then after I had to jump start her last Tuesday, she went to work mostly behaved (she does do that thing, where she randomly revs the engine - maybe the starter re-engaging? Maybe something in the electronics), but stalled out a lot when idling - more so, the warmer she got. Also, she tried to idle at 500 rpm.
Will have to see, if that was just an intermittent thing, and starting her from scratch might reset some faulty memory value in the ECU, which might lead to the slow idle. Or maybe I got a bad signal from the MAF sensor, or some electronics elsewhere are mucking up a good signal. Still, no CEL is strange, as usually she's quite twitchy about values going out of spec intermittently, and a slow idle should be the result of some data inconsistency. Could also be the sensor on the crank reading fast, I guess.

Will check, if she runs next time out, otherwise I'm pretty sure I'll have to get her to a shop, where they can pull some voltages in a reasonable environment.

Maybe fuel pump?

 

[_Rick_]

Good input, that could be linked.

 

[deadlyapp]

Not sure on that engine, but there generally is an idle air controller on the throttle body that controls idle when the throttle body plate is closed. Generally it's a spindle mounted device that adjusts, but can get gummed up and fail or can fail due to electronics.

I got very good at cleaning mine when I had a 3000gt as it was a common failure point.

 

[_Rick_]

Not sure on that engine, but there generally is an idle air controller on the throttle body that controls idle when the throttle body plate is closed. Generally it's a spindle mounted device that adjusts, but can get gummed up and fail or can fail due to electronics.

I got very good at cleaning mine when I had a 3000gt as it was a common failure point.

https://wiki.seloc.org/a/Idle_Air_Control_Valve
Thanks for that tip, including:
"The S2 ECU cant measure where the IACV is so has to count the drive pulses it sends and remember the position, then tries to return to a datum every ignition on/off. If it loses track e.g. battery disconnected the ignition needs to be switched on to position 2 and off several times to run the valve back to the datum."

Could be, that that's causing the issues I currently have, and will disappear after a few more cycles. Indeed, last time out, either I got much better at feathering the pedal, or it got slightly more robust at idle. Still stalled when I was about to do the fine adjustment on my parking job :O.

 

[_Rick_]

So, the Lotus gods have finally struck.

I was going to go drive the Elise on Corsica, but on the way there the radiator blew up (well, at least properly), while I was trying to get through the first toll booth in Italy, when giving it a medium rev, when coolant intake temps were already at 105°C.

This didn't only almost totally ruin the vacation and make it more expensive to pull off (luckily I had an insurance that would tow the car, and get it home to Germany, as well as cover some of the rental car fees), but now I'm facing 2500€ of replacement costs, because of course that's a clam-off job. Now I hope they can do the clam-off in less than the quoted 4 hours - the one document from Lotus I found quotes the replacement a mere 3 hours, not 10 - but that's on the Toyota-powered model. Also, that quote may be excluding the clam-job.

I'll have it replaced with a full metal replacement, over the OEM cooler, which has some crack-prone plastic bits to hook up the tubing and mounting. So I guess next time, it will be the tubing, that will blow up
At least the reservoir cap didn't let go, which was my usual coolant-related issue.

On the up side: she got a new battery, and since then I only had one intermittent CEL (I think it was a crank sensor reading? something spooky, but it went away, and probably just a small electronics gremlin due to the dying battery), and she now idles cleanly again. She didn't for so long, that I'm instinctively still putting my foot on the gas, when I declutch....

 

[Fritzo]

So, the Lotus gods have finally struck.

I was going to go drive the Elise on Corsica, but on the way there the radiator blew up (well, at least properly), while I was trying to get through the first toll booth in Italy, when giving it a medium rev, when coolant intake temps were already at 105°C.

This didn't only almost totally ruin the vacation and make it more expensive to pull off (luckily I had an insurance that would tow the car, and get it home to Germany, as well as cover some of the rental car fees), but now I'm facing 2500€ of replacement costs, because of course that's a clam-off job. Now I hope they can do the clam-off in less than the quoted 4 hours - the one document from Lotus I found quotes the replacement a mere 3 hours, not 10 - but that's on the Toyota-powered model. Also, that quote may be excluding the clam-job.

I'll have it replaced with a full metal replacement, over the OEM cooler, which has some crack-prone plastic bits to hook up the tubing and mounting. So I guess next time, it will be the tubing, that will blow up
At least the reservoir cap didn't let go, which was my usual coolant-related issue.

On the up side: she got a new battery, and since then I only had one intermittent CEL (I think it was a crank sensor reading? something spooky, but it went away, and probably just a small electronics gremlin due to the dying battery), and she now idles cleanly again. She didn't for so long, that I'm instinctively still putting my foot on the gas, when I declutch....

Sounds like you had a thermostat failure that cascaded. That sucks. Sorry man

 

[NutBucket]

I read that as plastic end tanks failing...hardly uncommon. If it is easy to replace the rad then not so bad. Granted, I do buy all-aluminum replacements if available.

 

[_Rick_]

I read that as plastic end tanks failing...hardly uncommon. If it is easy to replace the rad then not so bad. Granted, I do buy all-aluminum replacements if available.

Yeah, that's the likely case here. Didn't see the damage yet, as of course she broke down on a Sunday, and the shop I got her shipped to didn't give me an opportunity to look at the damage, as they were badly backlogged, when she came in. But at least the tow/repair guys in Italy also pointed to the rad, so I'm somewhat confident they're not trying to rip me off too bad.

To add insult to injury, we got a Panda rental - yeah, not the best car for Corsican roads.

 

[NutBucket]

At least it wasn't a Sandero?

 

[Fritzo]

Yeah, that's the likely case here. Didn't see the damage yet, as of course she broke down on a Sunday, and the shop I got her shipped to didn't give me an opportunity to look at the damage, as they were badly backlogged, when she came in. But at least the tow/repair guys in Italy also pointed to the rad, so I'm somewhat confident they're not trying to rip me off too bad.

To add insult to injury, we got a Panda rental - yeah, not the best car for Corsican roads.

For us Americans, a Panda is a Fiat 500 4 door.

::snicker::

 

[_Rick_]

At least it wasn't a Sandero?

I'm not sure the Sandero would be worse. 70 horse power shitbox, without armrests, without Bluetooth, old school "blue is cold-ish" AC - well, still felt luxurious coming from the Elise, with padded seats and noise dampening
Just the go was missing, and around corners...let's not bring back those memories.

 

[ponyo]

One of the coolest car ever! Sucks about the radiator though.

 

[_Rick_]

Looks like I can pick her up tomorrow - let's see what shape she's in.

 

[_Rick_]

Aaaand, on the way home from picking her up, the driver side indicator blew out of the clam shell again.
Trying to click it back into place merely broke the housing again.
Such a design fail.
Will call the shop on Monday, to see if they can do the replacement at their cost - I'm pretty sure they loosened it, when removing the clam shell....

 

[_Rick_]

So, after getting a new indicator, it plopped out as I accelerated up to 50 mph - so I turned around, and now they glued it into place.
Downside: It will be much more expensive to swap the indicator bulb, as now the wheel needs to come off.
Upside: The indicator is a ~200$ part, and I ran through way more, than indicator bulbs....

Also, on the last trip, before the winter break, the air filter fell off. Found it lying in the engine bay, when opening the trunk on destination.
I'm pretty positive it was still on when I started the trip, so I hope not too much dirt was ingested - it also was pretty humid, so dust wasn't a major issue.

Luckily I had my Swiss knife on me, so I could loosen/refasten the clamp, and reinstall the airfilter easily, and hopefully for the next couple of years, or until I get a new induction system/swap the air filter.

Pretty sizable WTF though.

 

[_Rick_]

Resurrecting my Lotus drama thread:

On my wife's birthday, the Subaru was in the shop for service, and the Lotus was barely 200km out of a 3k euro service, doing brake lines, oxygen sensor, gearing linkage, belt and waterpump - the works.
So after having driven it home, having had one sad start, where it just died again, and one satisyfing drive, I noticed the battery was low again, jump-started it, got a high idle at 1200-1500 rpm, but not much else, so we went for the drive for 20km, to a swimming pool.

It made about 16 of those, when it started going into panic mode, roughly cutting ignition above 3k rpm, giving me the finger (CEL), dropping the temp sensor display, and letting the fans spin at max rpm.
I was hoping it would just be the usual sensor/electronics issue, where a restart would do the trick, but as I finally found a spot to shut her off, when I started her again, all I got was crank and fuel - no spark.

Of course the shop that just did the service is already in full CYA-mode, after taking apart half the engine bay to swap the belt - and after having gotten a tow to tow lot, they now also tell me that their shop is booked through the next 4 weeks.
Now I'm checking whether the other Lotus shop is willing to take a look, probably should have gone there in the first place, and asked for a refund, if anything that gets touched during service is the culprit. I'm kind of expecting the wiring related to that oxygen sensor swap to be involved.

Oh yeah, the wife decided never, ever to get back in that car with me

 

[Fritzo]

Resurrecting my Lotus drama thread:

On my wife's birthday, the Subaru was in the shop for service, and the Lotus was barely 200km out of a 3k euro service, doing brake lines, oxygen sensor, gearing linkage, belt and waterpump - the works.
So after having driven it home, having had one sad start, where it just died again, and one satisyfing drive, I noticed the battery was low again, jump-started it, got a high idle at 1200-1500 rpm, but not much else, so we went for the drive for 20km, to a swimming pool.

It made about 16 of those, when it started going into panic mode, roughly cutting ignition above 3k rpm, giving me the finger (CEL), dropping the temp sensor display, and letting the fans spin at max rpm.
I was hoping it would just be the usual sensor/electronics issue, where a restart would do the trick, but as I finally found a spot to shut her off, when I started her again, all I got was crank and fuel - no spark.

Of course the shop that just did the service is already in full CYA-mode, after taking apart half the engine bay to swap the belt - and after having gotten a tow to tow lot, they now also tell me that their shop is booked through the next 4 weeks.
Now I'm checking whether the other Lotus shop is willing to take a look, probably should have gone there in the first place, and asked for a refund, if anything that gets touched during service is the culprit. I'm kind of expecting the wiring related to that oxygen sensor swap to be involved.

Oh yeah, the wife decided never, ever to get back in that car with me

Wonder if you have fuel pump issues. Did the garage you took it to seem competent? It's basically just a Toyota engine in those things and they're pretty straight forward. Engine access is the main problem.

 

[_Rick_]

It's the Rover engine - and there's definitely fuel being sprayed into cylinder.
Could be the timing sensor, which is the guess from the other shop, who also has a four week wait list for mechanic access.
The shop not taking more responsibility for their mess-up (and me getting stuck with a freshly serviced car is a mess up, whether they caused it, or just missed it) - but there's only so many shops in Germany who will do the timing belt replacement..

 

[_Rick_]

Now it got silently towed to the shop - let's see what they come up with.

 

[_Rick_]

They're saying bad reading from the temperature sensor.
Couldn't tell me whether it was wiring, sensor, or the ECU yet.
Hopefully I'll hear from them this week.

 

[_Rick_]

Update: Apparently none of the sensors is to blame, and we're down to ECU or wiring loom. That's gonna be fun.
Still will blame them, if the wiring loom got it, and if it's the ECU, I might still try to.

There's only so much I'm willing to tolerate after extensive and expensive service a couple of weeks prior...

 

[_Rick_]

So, after 100 days, she's back.

The Lotus tuner told me that the most probable cause of failure was the shop changing the lambda sonde, but not fitting the wiring correctly.
Wire touches exhaust manifolds, and 12V circuit of lambda sonde heater connects to the sensor line, blowing out the sensor pull-down in the ECU.
Then, all analogue sensors report max values, and engine won't run.

I'll get in touch with the original shop again, as the spend was quite painful this year, and given the evidence I would expect some remediation. They'll probably claim they did the diagnosis already for basically free, and that's as far as they can go - but let's give that a go anyway.

New programmable ECU works allright, just the speedometer signal is a bit noisy, and the calibration is now like a "normal" car, where it reads about 5% high. Originally, it was within 1% of GPS, which was fairly impressive, now I have to recalibrate how to drive speed limits...

 

[_Rick_]

And fate strikes again: During routine maintenance, the shop noticed the car running hot, and a slight film of oil in the coolant.
Sniff test concluded no CO2 leak, so while the oil has come from somewhere, that alone shouldn't be sufficient for the temperature increase.
First swap was done on the thermostat, but that didn't cure it.
Now they'll swap the water pump (hooray), and we'll hope that that fixes it - but the waterpump was just replaced two years ago, and the error mode is certainly not common.
Since higher revs make for worse cooling performance, it is the most likely cause though, so I hope this premature belt and pump service is going to get the car back in my hands, before the autumn season kicks off. At least July saw no driveable days, so so far the loss wasn't immense.

 

[JulesMaximus]

And fate strikes again: During routine maintenance, the shop noticed the car running hot, and a slight film of oil in the coolant.
Sniff test concluded no CO2 leak, so while the oil has come from somewhere, that alone shouldn't be sufficient for the temperature increase.
First swap was done on the thermostat, but that didn't cure it.
Now they'll swap the water pump (hooray), and we'll hope that that fixes it - but the waterpump was just replaced two years ago, and the error mode is certainly not common.
Since higher revs make for worse cooling performance, it is the most likely cause though, so I hope this premature belt and pump service is going to get the car back in my hands, before the autumn season kicks off. At least July saw no driveable days, so so far the loss wasn't immense.

Livin’ the dream!

I just bought a fun toy myself. It is a bit more practical than a Lotus Elise. It’s a fun car and it is fast but not nearly as communicative as the Lotus is.