Sick S1- Can any one help please.
Discussion
Hi guys, just joined the site and in the nick of time too.
I have a beautiful S1 elise on a s plate. Its been well looked after by the previous owner not thrashed.
I was driving the car today enjoying the moment, when the lights on the dash board all illuminated and the needles on both dials dropped like the titanic.This coincided with a loss of power with lack of response the car shuddered. This all lasted about four secounds and then cleared. However the rev needle read four thousand but the engine was running as normal.
This same thing appened about three times as i drove the car home a five minute journey. On reaching home the needle on the rev counter still remained stuck at about four thousand, still the engine ran fine at normal idleing revs.
On truning the ignition off and on a couple of times the rev needle did zero again and it was business as usual.
I have checked oil level- fine. Coolant level has dropped alittle as a result of above. Has anyone experianced this before or have any ideas of whats happening.
Hope someone can help.
PS i live in Peterborough, Cambridgeshire can anyone recomend a good garage for lotus elise's.
cheers cheers
Paul H
I have a beautiful S1 elise on a s plate. Its been well looked after by the previous owner not thrashed.
I was driving the car today enjoying the moment, when the lights on the dash board all illuminated and the needles on both dials dropped like the titanic.This coincided with a loss of power with lack of response the car shuddered. This all lasted about four secounds and then cleared. However the rev needle read four thousand but the engine was running as normal.
This same thing appened about three times as i drove the car home a five minute journey. On reaching home the needle on the rev counter still remained stuck at about four thousand, still the engine ran fine at normal idleing revs.
On truning the ignition off and on a couple of times the rev needle did zero again and it was business as usual.
I have checked oil level- fine. Coolant level has dropped alittle as a result of above. Has anyone experianced this before or have any ideas of whats happening.
Hope someone can help.
PS i live in Peterborough, Cambridgeshire can anyone recomend a good garage for lotus elise's.
cheers cheers
Paul H
Sounds like a minor electrical glitch to me, and from your description of the symptoms when the engine originally stumbled, first suspect would be a loose or dirty main battery connection - either live or earth.
The battery is a bit of a pain to get to - it's burried quite deep in the front compartment on the passenger side and you may have to remove the washer bottle to improve access - but before you start spending money at garages, check that the battery connections are clean and tight. Disconnect the cables, clean up the battery posts with a bit of emery paper, then reconnect them and smear them with vaseline to prevent future corrosion.
If the problem persists, check that all the harness connections in the engie compartment are nice and tight -especially the one to the main ECU - but I'm fairly sure you've got nothing worse than a dodgy electrical connection somewhere on the car.
edited to add: for future reference, Paul, you'll find you get a better response in the Elise-specific forum. The general Lotus forum (here) is mainly frequented by old anoraks, Lotus geeks and the odd troll!
Have you also discovered the SELOC forums? Stands for South East Lotus Owner's Club, but it's very popular with the Elise community and there's a lot of expertise to be found over there if you have technical problems. You need to register, but it's free.
Good luck!
The battery is a bit of a pain to get to - it's burried quite deep in the front compartment on the passenger side and you may have to remove the washer bottle to improve access - but before you start spending money at garages, check that the battery connections are clean and tight. Disconnect the cables, clean up the battery posts with a bit of emery paper, then reconnect them and smear them with vaseline to prevent future corrosion.
If the problem persists, check that all the harness connections in the engie compartment are nice and tight -especially the one to the main ECU - but I'm fairly sure you've got nothing worse than a dodgy electrical connection somewhere on the car.
edited to add: for future reference, Paul, you'll find you get a better response in the Elise-specific forum. The general Lotus forum (here) is mainly frequented by old anoraks, Lotus geeks and the odd troll!
Have you also discovered the SELOC forums? Stands for South East Lotus Owner's Club, but it's very popular with the Elise community and there's a lot of expertise to be found over there if you have technical problems. You need to register, but it's free.
Good luck!
Edited by Sam_68 on Sunday 27th May 08:05
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