My Drive from London....

[Murph]

Hi All

Well re my last post, I just wanted to share my experience with all you enhusiasts out there.

We were flying down to London to collect my Elise S2 and going to drive her home to Pathhead. We travelled light no coats only a jumpers as we knew we were going to be met by sunshine and we thought the drive home would be warm.
Our first problem was the flight was delayed by 3 hrs due to fog in Heathrow, this meant our arrival was 3hrs late and we would be leaving London at around 4pm.

We eventually arrived and after the full inspection at the garage was completed we were on our way. The fog had cleared and the sun was shining it was a beautiful spring afternoon and my dream was to about come true.
She looked lovely dazzling in the sunshine and singing in my ear, I was the proud new owner of an Elise. She's not new but she was looking for a new home and I was the one that spotted her first. We drove for about 30 miles happy and excited looking forward to the drive ahead. Then it happened - we discovered the car's heater was not working. It only blew out cold air. Obviously something wrong with the thermostat, we were not in a position to deal with it as we had to get home (kids and babysitters) we knew we had a cold trip ahead of us. By the time we got to Birmingham the car's interior was freezing ( remember no coats only jumpers) . My dream was turning into a nightmare. My poor wife was numb with cold no blankets for sale at the services. The thought of 4 hrs ahead in a Lotus Elise RaceTech ( not the most comfortable seats for a long drive) with no heater with dropping temperatures with my wife complaining of the cold , was going to be a disaster.
Head down thoughts of warm sunny days with the roof down and hot climates didn't help. We just had to get on with it.

We arrived home at Midnight the same colour as the car.... ICE BLUE! safe and in one piece but never wanting to do that drive again.

Today is a new day and my Elise is still dazzling and singing to me, and last night seemed a long time ago. I am now the proud owner of a Lotus Elise S2 Ice Blue with 28,000 on the clock and looking forward to the many hrs of great driving and fun ahead. My wife climbed into her warm comfortable MPV with the kids and me into my Elise - cold, but not for long and worth every mile. THE DREAM BEGINS..

[renmure]

Sounds like a memorable journey

You should have taken the roof off, might not have made ya warm but would have at least felt cool rather than cold :

Jim

[campbell]

Ice Blue really was the colour eh!

Welcome home, hopefully won't take much to get your heater sorted. Was the temp gauge also reading very low? Might it actually be the heater matrix exchanger thingy that's at fault...

[Murph]

Thanks for the comments

It will be going into the garage on Monday and I'm sure will be rectified.
I will check out what you say Campbell

[campbell]

Thanks for the comments

It will be going into the garage on Monday and I'm sure will be rectified.
I will check out what you say Campbell

Yeah but don't take too much notice of me when I hand out gratuitous techie advice, I'm a bit of a rookie

I had a cherished Mk1 XR2 which ran real cold one winter, yes they all do it in winter, never summer eh. Turned out was faulty thermostat, so temp gauge wasn't getting off the bottom of the scale.

[delands]

Welcome


I'm at Pathhead every Thursday night.. watch out for a white Elise on occasions.

[whaleys]

I can sympathise with you. My wife and I picked ours up from Plymouth in November and had a long drive back to Dundee. Needless to say we hit all sorts of weather from sun (to begin with), fog (shortly after), rain (by nightfall) and an hour or two of heavy snow as we were going through the West Midlands. It was down to tramlines, and its got AO48's on it! We must have looked like Bambi on ice

Our heater did work however, but to be honest it was struggling against the low temperatures.

Still its all worth it in the end!

Glad you're still excited after it all.

Graeme

[bertieduff]

Ha, ha welcome to the joys of Lotus ownership

The car is just testing you to make sure you're not a lightweight/TT driver. She'll soon settle down I'm sure.

Heater is pretty pants anyway- probably won't make much difference when it's fixed...but after a few outings you won't care anyway- 'tis the only thing I've ever bought that still makes me grin like an idiot a couple of years on....

(must say I find the seats dead comfy)

[tut]

......whereas the S1 heater works great even with the top off, but you do have to turn the temp down going over the top of Glenshee in a blizzard if you have it up.



tut

[thinfourth]

Whats a heater?

[Matelotman]

(former Mayfield resident)

[Corranga]

Replaced the thermostat in 'loan barge' A4 about 2 months ago, the daily commute was getting a bit chilly and that would be nothing compared to your journey!

Glad you're home and warm, and fingers crossed we'll have some hot weather soonm and you won't need the heater!