Driving tips for Elise
Discussion
Hi
I take delivery of my first ever Lotus Elise (Mk2) in about 2 weeks time and was hoping you guys could give me some driving tips?
I understand driving a rear wheel drive is different from a front? Anything in particular I should be careful of or indeed make use off :-)
Thanks
Andy
I take delivery of my first ever Lotus Elise (Mk2) in about 2 weeks time and was hoping you guys could give me some driving tips?
I understand driving a rear wheel drive is different from a front? Anything in particular I should be careful of or indeed make use off :-)
Thanks
Andy
As much as I'd like to agree with the previous posting I suggest you take your time in getting use to the car. In the dry it will grip like anything, but in the wet the handling can become 'exciting' to say the least.
I've read quite a few articles whereby owner's have had the cars back 'snap' out for no apparent reason or 'there was a bump in the road and the car suddenly went'. These accidents are either caused by complacency in the cars handling and power or simply pushing the car beyond it's performance limits. In all the incidents I've seen though it is the driver to blame, not the car.
Don't get me wrong, the car handles excellently and has predictable behavior. But if you put your foot down on a greasy corner and aren't prepared fot the consequences it will put you in a ditch/bush/lamppost very quickly.
So use the 'engine running in' time to become familiar with your new car. Better still, book yourself onto the Lotus Experience 1 course, run up at Lotus HQ, and practice spinning one of their Elises on their track!
So take care, but above all have some good fun with it!
I've read quite a few articles whereby owner's have had the cars back 'snap' out for no apparent reason or 'there was a bump in the road and the car suddenly went'. These accidents are either caused by complacency in the cars handling and power or simply pushing the car beyond it's performance limits. In all the incidents I've seen though it is the driver to blame, not the car.
Don't get me wrong, the car handles excellently and has predictable behavior. But if you put your foot down on a greasy corner and aren't prepared fot the consequences it will put you in a ditch/bush/lamppost very quickly.
So use the 'engine running in' time to become familiar with your new car. Better still, book yourself onto the Lotus Experience 1 course, run up at Lotus HQ, and practice spinning one of their Elises on their track!
So take care, but above all have some good fun with it!
I wholeheartedly agree with the above comments having recently bent my own S2 through overestimating my abilities on a wet roundabout.
It is a great car, and it often surprised me with what it could do, but it is not invincible. Take things easy, and do some driver traing courses.
Regards,
Dave
It is a great car, and it often surprised me with what it could do, but it is not invincible. Take things easy, and do some driver traing courses.
Regards,
Dave
Having extensively driven Mk 1 and a day at Hethel in the Mk 2, the latter is unbelievably benign by comparison. You really can enjoy yourself in the wet, unlike the Mk 1, with progressive lift off and power on oversteer. Some feel teh Mark 2 is too understeery but I disagree.
My own car is stiffened to race spec, so is naturally more nervous. I have lost it a couple of times on the road, owing to elementary mistakes, lifting off mid corner or hitting a bump mid corner, and lucky not to have come to any harm.
Best advice is to buy tuition for a whole track day. John Bussell (number can be supplied) is brilliant. An ex Porche cup champion he has helped me and this year's Class B Roadsport champion, Stephen Oliver (also Mk1 Lotus Elise).
My own car is stiffened to race spec, so is naturally more nervous. I have lost it a couple of times on the road, owing to elementary mistakes, lifting off mid corner or hitting a bump mid corner, and lucky not to have come to any harm.
Best advice is to buy tuition for a whole track day. John Bussell (number can be supplied) is brilliant. An ex Porche cup champion he has helped me and this year's Class B Roadsport champion, Stephen Oliver (also Mk1 Lotus Elise).
The 1000 mile running in period with the Elise without doubt helps avoid a lot of accidents, by getting their owners used to the car at sub 3000rpm.
I owned a Mk1 for 2 years and now have a Mk2. The Mk2 is less likely to bite you than the original, but still needs care, especially in the wet. My advice is buy a copy of Roadcraft. The section on cornering is good advice. Position-Speed-Gear. Get these correct before the bend, and just balance the car on the throttle through the bend, and you won't come unstuck.
Top Tip: Do not allow the rear tyres to get anywhere near the legal limit. Replace them when tread gets down to 2.5mm or 3mm. The difference it makes on a wet road is very noticeable! Enjoy!
I owned a Mk1 for 2 years and now have a Mk2. The Mk2 is less likely to bite you than the original, but still needs care, especially in the wet. My advice is buy a copy of Roadcraft. The section on cornering is good advice. Position-Speed-Gear. Get these correct before the bend, and just balance the car on the throttle through the bend, and you won't come unstuck.
Top Tip: Do not allow the rear tyres to get anywhere near the legal limit. Replace them when tread gets down to 2.5mm or 3mm. The difference it makes on a wet road is very noticeable! Enjoy!
I'm wondering what you drove before the Elise? When its wet did you adjust your driving because of the reduced grip etc etc? The Lotus handles beautifully and if you do everything progressively you'll have no problems. By progressively I mean 'apply' the throttle don't stamp on it unless you want power oversteer, press the brake pedal hard but don't jump on it or you'll lock the wheels
It's not something to fear its something to enjoy but it isn't like anything else you've ever driven so take your time to learn it - like you would any other car. One last thing - don't floor it coming out of a wet roundabout in, say, second unless you want to see where you've just been (got away with just a scratched rear wheel)!
It's not something to fear its something to enjoy but it isn't like anything else you've ever driven so take your time to learn it - like you would any other car. One last thing - don't floor it coming out of a wet roundabout in, say, second unless you want to see where you've just been (got away with just a scratched rear wheel)!
...abenbow wrote:
"I'm wondering what you drove before the Elise? When its wet did you adjust your driving because of the reduced grip etc etc? The Lotus handles beautifully and if you do everything progressively you'll have no problems. "
My last car was a Fiat Bravo 1.4sx so quite a different car to the Elise!
My concerns came after a friend of a friend who has a Ferrari Modena (okay slightly different again from the Elise said that the suspension in the car is so tailored to the track that when driving on normal roads, the slightest bumped made the car unstable.
Cheers
Andy
"I'm wondering what you drove before the Elise? When its wet did you adjust your driving because of the reduced grip etc etc? The Lotus handles beautifully and if you do everything progressively you'll have no problems. "
My last car was a Fiat Bravo 1.4sx so quite a different car to the Elise!
My concerns came after a friend of a friend who has a Ferrari Modena (okay slightly different again from the Elise
said that the suspension in the car is so tailored to the track that when driving on normal roads, the slightest bumped made the car unstable. Cheers
Andy
Any car with low profile tyres and stiff suspension will tramline (follow the camber of the road) to a certain extent. There is nothing you can do about this and it is a feature of all sports cars. This means you have to concentrate more on the road, but the advantage is that you can sense everything about the surface you're on.
I drove an Elise S2 (hired for a week) recently and I have to say that I can't begin to imagine what people are saying about it being tricky to drive.
I'm not a profesional driver and I haven't been to the Lotus driving school. I'm just a guy who likes cars that do as they're told.
I was extremely impressed with the Elise. It was almost as if it wouldn't let me do anything really stupid. I did feel the rear end start to step out a couple of times when the roads were wet but the car never deviated more than a few cm from where I expected it to be. And I wasn't exactly being timid with the car. I threw it into more than a few wet roundabouts at speeds normally reserved for straight roads and without being particularly careful of what I was doing with the throttle. Speaking of which I certainly didn't wait for straights to abuse the throttle. But not once did the car ever let me down.
The steering is borderline supernatural. The wheel looks a bit silly and small at first but when I got moving, I realized that it was just exactly the right size.
Maybe the people who had problems hit a patch of something slippery and not normally found in a road. Those things do happen I suppose.
I have a Delorean as well and the back end has gotten away from me a couple of times in that car. Even though the DMC is a pretty good handler in its own right, by comparison, the Elise is welded to the road.
Downsides? Sure. It has what optimists would call "character".
You have to be a world-class gymnast to be able to easily get in and out of the thing.
If you value your hearing, you'll need earplus if you plan to spend more than 20 minutes in the car at freeway speeds - especially with the top on. I boggles my mind that a company capable of building such an amazing car could fall down so badly when it comes to making it easy to live with on a daily basis. I know they're trying to keep the weight down but if they'd toss another few kilos worth of sound insulation around the engine and the same amount of deadening material in the cabin, they could be selling five times as many cars (which would presumably bring the price down a few grand and lead to more sales still).
If anyone at Lotus is listening... Here's my wish list.
1. Drop the interior noise level at cruising speed by about 20%. The car is simply too loud. Putting a nice stereo in it just adds insult to injury. Who wants to look at a radio they can't hear unless they're waiting at a stop light unless it is turned up to ear-destroying volume?
2. It needs a six-speed.
3. The engine needs another 20-30 lb/ft of torque.
4. Please have mercy on those of us with big feet. I know it is supposed to be cool for the pedals to be so close together but why on earth would you sell a car that is so appealing to men but then design the pedals for women's feet?
5. On a related subject, just a little more space in the cabin would make a huge difference. Again, I know they're trying to keep the weight down, but speaking as someone who is just shy of 6 feet and (on a good day) about 190lbs, everything is just a little close. Sometimes I think the biggest guy at Lotus must be about 5'8" and rather slightly built.
I'm not a profesional driver and I haven't been to the Lotus driving school. I'm just a guy who likes cars that do as they're told.
I was extremely impressed with the Elise. It was almost as if it wouldn't let me do anything really stupid. I did feel the rear end start to step out a couple of times when the roads were wet but the car never deviated more than a few cm from where I expected it to be. And I wasn't exactly being timid with the car. I threw it into more than a few wet roundabouts at speeds normally reserved for straight roads and without being particularly careful of what I was doing with the throttle. Speaking of which I certainly didn't wait for straights to abuse the throttle. But not once did the car ever let me down.
The steering is borderline supernatural. The wheel looks a bit silly and small at first but when I got moving, I realized that it was just exactly the right size.
Maybe the people who had problems hit a patch of something slippery and not normally found in a road. Those things do happen I suppose.
I have a Delorean as well and the back end has gotten away from me a couple of times in that car. Even though the DMC is a pretty good handler in its own right, by comparison, the Elise is welded to the road.
Downsides? Sure. It has what optimists would call "character".
You have to be a world-class gymnast to be able to easily get in and out of the thing.
If you value your hearing, you'll need earplus if you plan to spend more than 20 minutes in the car at freeway speeds - especially with the top on. I boggles my mind that a company capable of building such an amazing car could fall down so badly when it comes to making it easy to live with on a daily basis. I know they're trying to keep the weight down but if they'd toss another few kilos worth of sound insulation around the engine and the same amount of deadening material in the cabin, they could be selling five times as many cars (which would presumably bring the price down a few grand and lead to more sales still).
If anyone at Lotus is listening... Here's my wish list.
1. Drop the interior noise level at cruising speed by about 20%. The car is simply too loud. Putting a nice stereo in it just adds insult to injury. Who wants to look at a radio they can't hear unless they're waiting at a stop light unless it is turned up to ear-destroying volume?
2. It needs a six-speed.
3. The engine needs another 20-30 lb/ft of torque.
4. Please have mercy on those of us with big feet. I know it is supposed to be cool for the pedals to be so close together but why on earth would you sell a car that is so appealing to men but then design the pedals for women's feet?
5. On a related subject, just a little more space in the cabin would make a huge difference. Again, I know they're trying to keep the weight down, but speaking as someone who is just shy of 6 feet and (on a good day) about 190lbs, everything is just a little close. Sometimes I think the biggest guy at Lotus must be about 5'8" and rather slightly built.
Just thought I'd add my tuppence worth. I have had an elise now for nearly 5 years and it is a relatively easy car to drive near its limits compared to most mid-engined cars. The only problems you may have if is you treat it like a front-engined RWD car in the wet, it will not powerslide around roundabouts but can be made to drift on fairly sharp corners once you get the hang of it. It is a mid-engined car and requires a much more smooth and delicate driving style than anything front-engined, all mid-engined cars do.
Oh and Andy, your friend with the 360 is telling you porkies, they are not set up for the track at all, they are road cars and easier to drive than many of the older ones. They are just rather twitchy on the throttle, but in many respects are like a scaled-up elise to drive (my father has one). Hope this has been of some use.
John.
P.S. Jon, I am 6 foot 3, 14 stone and have wide size 12 feet. I find the elise a very comfortable car to drive, second only to mt TR3A.
>> Edited by kingjohn on Thursday 14th March 23:50
Oh and Andy, your friend with the 360 is telling you porkies, they are not set up for the track at all, they are road cars and easier to drive than many of the older ones. They are just rather twitchy on the throttle, but in many respects are like a scaled-up elise to drive (my father has one). Hope this has been of some use.
John.
P.S. Jon, I am 6 foot 3, 14 stone and have wide size 12 feet. I find the elise a very comfortable car to drive, second only to mt TR3A.
>> Edited by kingjohn on Thursday 14th March 23:50
On a slightly differenct tack what do other S2 owners think of the brakes on their cars?
I changed my S1 (97 build with the MMC brakes) for a Racetech S2 in November (Storm of Leicester). So far I'm very impressed with the improvements, but the brakes seem to have no bite. I often find I have to push the pedal very hard at a point where it already feels to have no give ... anyone else found the same?
The car has only done 990 miles and I've been avoiding hitting the brakes hard so it may just be bedding in that's required. However after the MMC's it's a little disconcerting!
I also find the drivetrain on the S2 MUCH more noisy than the S1, especially with the hood on. This could be due to the reduced wind noise levels ... I was a bit disgusted to find out that the Rachtech has less sound deadening that the Sports Tourer after my dealer had assured my they were the same - that could also be affecting things.
Finally does anyone else suffer from the rear undertray vibrating when you pull away from Junctions?
Rest assured on all other counts I'm chuffed to bits and very pleased I changed to an S2.
Thanks,
James
I changed my S1 (97 build with the MMC brakes) for a Racetech S2 in November (Storm of Leicester). So far I'm very impressed with the improvements, but the brakes seem to have no bite. I often find I have to push the pedal very hard at a point where it already feels to have no give ... anyone else found the same?
The car has only done 990 miles and I've been avoiding hitting the brakes hard so it may just be bedding in that's required. However after the MMC's it's a little disconcerting!
I also find the drivetrain on the S2 MUCH more noisy than the S1, especially with the hood on. This could be due to the reduced wind noise levels ... I was a bit disgusted to find out that the Rachtech has less sound deadening that the Sports Tourer after my dealer had assured my they were the same - that could also be affecting things.
Finally does anyone else suffer from the rear undertray vibrating when you pull away from Junctions?
Rest assured on all other counts I'm chuffed to bits and very pleased I changed to an S2.
Thanks,
James
Andy,
Totally agree, be very careful in the wet, Too much throttle applied heavily, even on a damp road can induce some heart pounding moments. Likewise, keep your distance from the vehicle in front in the wet, more so than normal until you get used to the brake response. Roadcraft is an excellent book, recommend it to anyone. Try the HMSO shop in Birmingham if you have trouble finding a copy.
Totally agree, be very careful in the wet, Too much throttle applied heavily, even on a damp road can induce some heart pounding moments. Likewise, keep your distance from the vehicle in front in the wet, more so than normal until you get used to the brake response. Roadcraft is an excellent book, recommend it to anyone. Try the HMSO shop in Birmingham if you have trouble finding a copy.
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