Loose rattle in front of feet on newly purchased Elise

[gt3driver73]

Hi

After my post the other day about upgrading to a new Elise I've bought one last weekend at a Lotus Dealer down south. At the start of the test drive I drove out of the showroom with the salesman next to me and as we went down a little dip we felt/heard something loose in front of our feet sounding like it came from the suspension area. The salesman said to me that they would get that fixed during their service during the week.We carried on with a 20min test drive on reasonably good B roads and this noise didn't happen again.

After the service mid week the salesman rang me up to say that their mechanic had done a thorough inspection all over the front end and had found nothing so it was ready to pick up. I said that there clearly was an issue and therefore I wouldn't pick the car up until he had identified what the noise was and it was fixed.

The salesman then spent some time in the car, went over the same bump out of the showroom and all sorts of other tests and couldn't replicate the problem at all.

I am now in a quandry. The dealer is 4.5 hours drive from me so it's not easy to go and check the car myself and come home. Although he assures me that the Lotus warranty will mean that I can take it to a dealer near me, it's still over an hours drive and obviously I don't want the hassle with a car I've just bought. What do you all think?

[NotDMike]

If it only has one rattle when you get it, you are doing ok? (For an Elise).

But if it were me, since in principle I want the car, I’d be going there to collect it, taking the salesman at their word (hmm….). Ask for a drive first, if it is still an issue then consider leaving. The journey sounds long but then it takes a long time to find a car to purchase anyway… if this journey ends up wasted then the amount of time is small compared to what will be spent looking for another car.

Edited by NotDMike on Saturday 30th July 11:05

[TNW]

Is it a brand new car or pre-owned? If the latter, it might have upgraded after market pads which tend to be a little smaller than the OEM items and can rattle a fair bit, esp when cold.

[gt3driver73]

Cheers for that, well the car is a 2020 Elise 220 with 5k miles on it.

I know what you mean about rattles, I've just got a 2014 Elise which has lots of little squeaks and rattles, but this isn't that. This sounded like a single piece and metal, loose in front of and below the feet. However, after that initial noise, we drove around and it was silent, no rattles or squeaks at all in the car, lovely and tight.

I'm trading my Elise in against this, I've already paid the cash for the difference. The idea is to drive my car down there and take this new one back.

[BertBert]

If they can't find it, you only have a few choices really. Go get it, pull out out get them to keep driving it around. If you are keen on the car, I'd go get it and see if the noise comes back.

It was probably a spanner clunking against something as it was falling off!

[NotDMike]

One rattly bit, in front of feet, sounds a bit like the front anti roll bar? But they would have checked that, I am sure. Maybe if the car hadn’t been driven for a while it was just a case of the bushes freeing up initially?

Edited by NotDMike on Sunday 31st July 10:31

[gt3driver73]

Well in the end I went down and picked the car up and couldn't replicate the problem either so we'll never know what it is, unless it comes back at some point. A couple of other things though I'm now wanting to do which will do in a new post.

[StevieBee]

Just to add that I discovered an annoying rattle shortly after getting my 2007 S2. I eventually tracked it down to a wayward M&M in the passenger foot rest.