Scottish Elises

It was never going to be a good day. 28 days at home have come to an end all too quickly and this morning it was time to pack my bag & start the 26hr commute to work. The Elise has been pretty neglected since moving house and today was the day to tuck it up for the winter. We rented our house out in Oyne so I kept access to my garage at the old house while I got a suitable one built at the new place. The 45 min blast from Buckie to Oyne was to be a little silver lining on an otherwise sh*t day.

Set off in convoy with Katrina and when I got to the twisty buts, decided to open her up a bit. Coming to the end of a wee straight, on the brakes for a quick right, left over a narrow bridge, the back end snapped out unexpectedly on the turn in and I lost it. Clipped the verge before over correcting and spinning into the Armco on the exit of the bridge. Stupid F@ck, I thought, Ran out of talent. Katrina pulled up seconds later while I was getting out of the car. Between phone calls to insurers, police & tow trucks, I wandered up the road to where this started to go wrong.
Found a suspension bolt on the road before the corner without nut & with threads attached. Dunno what else to make of it, just gutted she's gone.

RIP AU 03 LGZ

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Doesn't look too bad, I've taxed worse.

If you want to have get to the bottom of it have a wee nosey around the suspension and check to see if your 1 short. If someone has had them off and fitted them with copper slip they will come loose but even so they won't want to come out that easily when the car is in use. and even with 3 bolts holding the wishbones on it should snap out.

Bummer - sounds like you'd put a bit of work into the car too

Might be a cliché, but you should take some comfort from the fact that no-one was physically hurt (looks like it could've turned out much worse). And most of us have done something similar at some point...

You're fairly convinced then that a mechanical failure was the cause of you losing control?

Is your in Inverurie? Think I have just seen it?

Glad you are okay Sorry to see the car in that state

Sorry to see the mess your car is in but happy that you are OK.

Car looks a bit worse for wear but at least you are ok.
Easily done when roads are greasy

The very fact you can report back is ,cars can sort or be replaced

really gutted for you mate........its, a real heart breaker when this happens.....i should know I did something similar a while back and was totally beside myself, had to wait 13 weeks to get her fixed and about 9K insurance cost.

however don’t give up on the wee elises...get another one in the future, if you cant fix this one..........also, its great testimony to the car that your safe and well:thumbsup

Cheers to all the replys. I have reminded myself a number of times that it's only metal & plastic & the only thing that's hurt is my pride. (and also reminded this to my wife this as she had a Grandstand view of the whole thing while following behind me. bh, she got a bigger scare than me.)

Andy - yes, it would've been my car you saw in Inverurie yesterday, the insurance company sent it to Lawrence of Kemnay. If i'd thought there was any chance of it being repaired, I'd have requested a specialist but since I'm cetain that it's beyond economic repair, I didn't bother.

I read my comment back through with respect to the bolt that I found & it dose sound straight out of the 'Big Book of Racing Driver Excuses'.
I spotted that it was from the drivers side front lower wishbone fwd mount & it's possible that this was a contributing factor but can't claim hand on heart it was the root cause.

The biggest dissappointmet is I know that it will be a while before I get another Lotus because we have just embarked on a bit of a project with our new house and with the long list of work required, it is unlikely the insurance money will be going towards a new toy. (but maybe a garage)

Rad looks OK...

Entirely fixable I'd suggest = £10k and robert's your mother's brother

(clam, front crash structure, suspension, wheels, sundries - if alu chassis is damaged, then it may be more complex to assess)



Glad to hear you're in good shape.

Rich H wrote:Rad looks OK...

Yep rad looks fine from above but didn't investigate further, it's an all alloy one, only fitted in May so only done 2k miles max.

Mr Momo wrote:Entirely fixable I'd suggest = £10k and robert's your mother's brother

(clam, front crash structure, suspension, wheels, sundries - if alu chassis is damaged, then it may be more complex to assess)



Glad to hear you're in good shape.

Chassis didn't look damaged from what I saw without getting underneath & yes looks all fixable but she's an 03 plate with 48k miles so only worth in the region of £10k to £11.5k (if you're generous about the 2nd hand value of the upgrades.) so unfortuately, I've resigned myself to the inevitable that the insurance Co. will deem it uneconomical to repair. It's a shame because she was almost at the spec I wanted (apart from bodywork condition but i managed to take that to a whole new level this time .).