Scottish Elises

First post here so hello everyone.

Im facing a bit of a challenge from an exige i bought in september from Murrays, I have spoken to craig about corrosion issues and I am told it is normal. Was also told the car was well looked after by the previous owner, so to put it lightly im a bit peeved at having to strip a car down to remove and replace items which have severe corrosion.

Some bolts are impossible to remove and have had to be dremmel'd off. chassis is showing signs of oxidation and lots of white powder forming in places.

backstay frames the coating was flaking off and peeled off with your hands - loooked terrible.

brackets replaced - near enough every bolt is corroded. wishbones lower and upper plastered in rust, ball joints corroded right through the outer casing on the lower 2 rears, so replaced all of them as well as bushes. O/S and N/S engine mounts badly corroded, brackets rotten right through all removed and replaced or powder coated. engine pulleys are solid rust and have been left.

both window seals are blistered badly and oxidising, front tow pillar is a mass of rust. bilsteins are corroded at the top.

the car has not been driven for the past 2 months, i have only covered about 2000 miles in this car and it presently sits on 13000 miles.

in future i'll be asking to see any car i buy from underneath!

is this really normal.....





















the rears have been removed, powder coated, new balljoints and bushes. and covered with 3m tape to avoid chipping. the results are good but I am really disapointed that I have had to do this to a car which is only just over 3 years old.

should i ask lotus to do something or should i just persevere and do the fronts....... comments appreciated.

Hi

Really sorry to hear you're disappointed with your Exige, Mine's is just over 4 years old and to date it hasn't let me down once. I have to admit my car has probably been abused a bit more than yours, I've also got similar surface rust on the wishbones etc but as I use it throughout the year, rain, sun and even snow ( it was out for a good 80 mile run today, frost, snow and salt included) it's what I expect. I Like how your wishbones have turned out after powder coating, its something I had been thinking of doing over this winter. That said won't be expecting them to stay that way for to long.

My Philosiphy is, it is serviced regularly at Murray's and if Craig is happy with how my car is I'm happy too, as I know if he'd any concern's he sure would let me know.

Don't be to hard on the car's underbody cosmetic looks, as i'm sure once you really get using it these little things will pale away. I was a bit of a polisher when I got mine, now the enjoyment of driving way outway's how pristine it looks.

Really hope you have as much fun with your Exige as I have.

Cheers and happy motoring

PS meant to ask where you stay, would be great to see your work. ( looks great)

cheers for your post kinger.

i wouldnt say im disapointed in the car - just the quality of what its made from. i did a lot of research on the exige before i bought it and although sub standard quality parts were mentioned over and over again I have never seen any pictures of one rusting quite as bad as this. I was planning on going down the lotus exhaust route but corrosion was mentioned too many times for my liking so opted for the 2bular instead.

the parts ive had powder coated have also been wrapped with clear 3m film to avoid any serious chipping of the powder coat so i hope they remain in good nick for a while. All the nuts and bolts have been replaced with high tensile stainless or galv items, but it wouldnt of cost much for lotus to do this in the first place or correctly coat the wishbones so they dont turn brown in 5 mins. id say theyre leaps and bounds behind their competition in terms of quality - having had a few decent cars none have ever been as rusty as this since my Mk2 xr2.

im in glenrothes, but up in aberdeen regularly - however i doubt the exige will move until that salt has been washed from the roads as i dont wanna go through this next year

I've done/seen loads of elise/exige and yours looked far worse than any Ive see. That gear box mount was worse than my 05 elise and it has 35k miles on it. The wishbones don't look to bad, certainly seen worse than them before. How old is the car BTW ?

Its a 2009 car Mike..

stoddie wrote:All the nuts and bolts have been replaced with high tensile stainless or galv items, but it wouldnt of cost much for lotus to do this in the first place or correctly coat the wishbones so they dont turn brown in 5 mins.

Did you change the grade/type of any of the suspension mounting bolts?

If so I believe you should revert to standard specification bolts before driving the car - search on here for stainless bolts and suspension - Simon (scuffers) posted up once or twice on this subject and he knows his onions.

I agree the engine bay rust looked heavy, the rest is completely normal.

Lotus's are about driving and they have always had problems with various forms of corrosion (since the first Elise, anyway - no idea about pre-Elise models). None of it is terminal though - plenty of '98 Elises still running around. I guess it's best not to look - after all, does it make any difference at all?

Cheers,
Robin

What he said, don't change the bolt specs
Stainless is for trim and non-loaded components only.
Correct spec bolts for everywhere else please.

Cheap components thrown together loosely - TADTS
The Esprit is a nightmare of rotten bolts, cheap fasteners and poor maintainability.
Still love it though (Reminds me I must go find it under the accumulated crap...)

Cheers for the advice guys,

The nuts and bolts were changed for a suspension refresh kit from seriously lotus. I spoke to him about it and they are of equivalent strength to the originals. None of the engine mounting bolts were changed.

You do like your yellow bits, i remember your 172!

how you doing mike - long time no see!

think the last time i seen you was when i had the DC5 down at dastek.

what you driving these days?

. I guess the car must have lived by the sea, been used all year round and/or always been kept outside. Atleast now you can get on with enjoying the car. I think a rust coloured powdercoat would've been better for an oem look

cheers lee

the last owner was from Dunbarton i think so it does explain a lot.

I spoke to Craig today and as always was helpful, also received an email back from lotus advising that the brackets etc etc werent covered by their warrenty, which i already knew. the fronts came off today and are up at the powder coaters. if anything its for my own piece of mind and i am to be honest a bit anal

stoddie wrote: if anything its for my own piece of mind and i am to be honest a bit anal

In that case, watch out for Dodgy Dave the Ba***rd(DDtB)when you meet him.

Is there not a risk of the 3m film trapping moisture and making matters worse ?

S

not sure, its sticky backed so not sure how moisture would get in there.

the whole front of the exige is covered in it and its not been a problem on that so far. it will prevent the powder coat chipping which is my main aim.