Discussion
Hi
I'm well down the road of getting a S1 Lotus Elise, having seen a few. As I can't garage the car I am looking for a hard top to avoid the leak issues. I will have a zero tolerance stance on leaks! My internet search is a bit fruitless at the moment, I don't know if its something to do with the age of the S1. Can anyone recommend an affordable water tight hard top roof? A few on ebay state they don't have weather proofing?? I know I would be able to store it in the car but I think water proofing the car will be more important than taking the roof off on a whim.
Also any experiences of owning a S1 and using it everyday would be appreciated. I only have a short commute and my wife has a family car so a nice little S1 should be just the job, hopefully! But I do need it everyday, if only for a few miles...
Regards
Tom
I'm well down the road of getting a S1 Lotus Elise, having seen a few. As I can't garage the car I am looking for a hard top to avoid the leak issues. I will have a zero tolerance stance on leaks! My internet search is a bit fruitless at the moment, I don't know if its something to do with the age of the S1. Can anyone recommend an affordable water tight hard top roof? A few on ebay state they don't have weather proofing?? I know I would be able to store it in the car but I think water proofing the car will be more important than taking the roof off on a whim.
Also any experiences of owning a S1 and using it everyday would be appreciated. I only have a short commute and my wife has a family car so a nice little S1 should be just the job, hopefully! But I do need it everyday, if only for a few miles...
Regards
Tom
I have an OEM Lotus hard top on mine. It lives outside all year and doesn't leak. I use the car on alternate days all year, even in snow.
I've had two soft tops, one was the original soft top which didn't leak unless I hadn't put it on right. After you've sat in a puddle you soon learn how to tweak it to work.
When that was 13 years old, or thereabouts, the stitching started to fail and I bought a replacement aftermarket soft top. This look excellent but did leak a bit. I used to slap an Elise shower cape over the top, which fixed it (it never leaked when driving, just when parked). I was going to play with the window adjustment to fix this, but then I happened across my hard top in the PH classifieds and since then I haven't bothered taking the hard top off.
I had a look at some aftermarket hard tops, but quite a few seemed to be for racing use, rather than as some sort of weather protection.
I bought the Elise with the intention of having it for a year and selling it on. That was six years ago. I find it makes an excellent daily driver, and it's still worth about as much as it was when I bought it.
I've had two soft tops, one was the original soft top which didn't leak unless I hadn't put it on right. After you've sat in a puddle you soon learn how to tweak it to work.
When that was 13 years old, or thereabouts, the stitching started to fail and I bought a replacement aftermarket soft top. This look excellent but did leak a bit. I used to slap an Elise shower cape over the top, which fixed it (it never leaked when driving, just when parked). I was going to play with the window adjustment to fix this, but then I happened across my hard top in the PH classifieds and since then I haven't bothered taking the hard top off.
I had a look at some aftermarket hard tops, but quite a few seemed to be for racing use, rather than as some sort of weather protection.
I bought the Elise with the intention of having it for a year and selling it on. That was six years ago. I find it makes an excellent daily driver, and it's still worth about as much as it was when I bought it.
teepeegb said:
Thanks for that, any links for suppliers?
The Elise Parts one didn't have seals, or at least not when I last looked. I do get bad thoughts about buying an entire Exige body from them and turning my Elise in to a proper coupe.Just keep an eye on eBay and PH for OEM hard tops. Mine was £500 from a chap on here who had sold his Elise and kept the hard top for sale seperately, which seems to happen quite often as cars with hard tops don't seam to be worth any more than ones without. It was a perfect paint match too, which was a bonus.
Scuffers said:
Captain Muppet said:
The Elise Parts one didn't have seals, or at least not when I last looked.
yes they do?
It's hard to spot black seals against black plastic, but it just looked like hard plastic to me.
I decided that an OEM one would definitely have seals and wouldn't cost over a grand plus extra for painting (I know, terrble cliched PH mistake of comparing new and secondhand, but I couldn't find any secondhand Elise Parts ones when I was looking and was only interested in the lowest cost option of appropriate quality).
Captain Muppet said:
Statement or question? It'd be nice to have a definitive answer on the thread.
It's hard to spot black seals against black plastic, but it just looked like hard plastic to me.
I decided that an OEM one would definitely have seals and wouldn't cost over a grand plus extra for painting (I know, terrble cliched PH mistake of comparing new and secondhand, but I couldn't find any secondhand Elise Parts ones when I was looking and was only interested in the lowest cost option of appropriate quality).
They do have seals. It's hard to spot black seals against black plastic, but it just looked like hard plastic to me.
I decided that an OEM one would definitely have seals and wouldn't cost over a grand plus extra for painting (I know, terrble cliched PH mistake of comparing new and secondhand, but I couldn't find any secondhand Elise Parts ones when I was looking and was only interested in the lowest cost option of appropriate quality).
EP ones seem to come up as often as OEM ones over the past four years that I've been looking, there was one up for £500 or so last month. OEM ones often seem to be (asking price) a couple of hundred more.
I had an OEM hardtop for mine. TBH I found it no more or less watertight than the softtop. Correct window adjustment was more important. The biggest difference the hardtop made was the extra insulation it provided in winter.
Also bear in mind the OEM hartop has no rain gutters, so on wet days whenever you open the window or door you are likely to have a wet right leg. As far as I know the Eliseparts roof is the only one with built-in rain gutters to avoid this problem.
Also bear in mind the OEM hartop has no rain gutters, so on wet days whenever you open the window or door you are likely to have a wet right leg. As far as I know the Eliseparts roof is the only one with built-in rain gutters to avoid this problem.
The factory hardtop that came with my S1 is no better at keeping the rain out that the fabric roof. Just a bit warmer in the winter. Waterproofing evidently did not receive Lotus engineering priority.
Suggest you do not keep a S1 outside if you expect to stay dry.
Anyway the Elise is best experienced on sunny top off days, because it is a handful on wet roads (even on the OEM fit Pirelli PZeros).
Suggest you do not keep a S1 outside if you expect to stay dry.
Anyway the Elise is best experienced on sunny top off days, because it is a handful on wet roads (even on the OEM fit Pirelli PZeros).
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