Help Buying a Lotus Exige....

[997c2scab]

Guys,

Been thinking about buying an Exige.
New to Lotus having had Porsche's before and was looking for some help.

Does anyone have / had a Exige and used it as a daily driver? Will be a 2nd car however I like to drive my cars rather than leaving the in the garage.

Can anyone confirm service intervals both mileage & time scales and associated cost.
Would you keep main dealer history or are using specialist seen as acceptable without affecting resale cost? Based in Milton Keynes / Northamptonshire Border and would seem that some good specialists around here?

Looking to spend around £23k - Have seen this one advertised which looked to be what I am after - http://www.pistonheads.com/sales/1519113.htm - Anyone know the car?

Car was originally reg'd to Lotus....Is this a good or bad thing? Also last service was at 11k miles back in 2008 should it have been done since?

Sorry to ask so many questions, if anyone can share any other info regarding Lotus ownership it is most appreciated

Regards

Mike

[RichyBoy]

If its an NA I think this car is more aimed towards the Euro buyers.

[The Bandit]

No,thats an Exige S and the advert is pretty rubbish.
Its on a GX plate which means it was registered in East Sussex(probably ex Dream Machines).
Service intervals are yearly or 9k miles which ever comes first,so that one's well overdue.
Look to pay around £200 for the year 1,2,4 and 5 services and around £300 for the year 3 and 6 at a good specialist or at least 50% extra at a main dealer.
Plenty of people who use them as daily drivers and aircon a must, but consider getting some good winter tyres as the semi-slicks can be 'entertaining' in extreme wet or cold apparently
There are a few 2007/8 cars at the £25k mark which is would make more sense,good luck with the hunt.
Plenty of info on www.seloc.org

[21TonyK]

As above. Thats an S with a very suspicious advert and history. Plenty of good cars out there. Don't rush into the first thing.

[Grinnders]

Well I'll let you all know once I've owned it for a while .........

[cyberface]

997c2scab said:

Guys,

Been thinking about buying an Exige.
New to Lotus having had Porsche's before and was looking for some help.

Does anyone have / had a Exige and used it as a daily driver? Will be a 2nd car however I like to drive my cars rather than leaving the in the garage.

I was a Porker bloke (still an enthusiast of the air-cooled cars) and my last Porsche was a 993 which I supercharged.

I swapped into a VX220 Turbo for financial downsizing (trackdays were expensive in the Porker), having had an S1 Elise before the 911s and not got on well with it (reliability, harshness, leaking, whereas they're seen as the 'purest' of the breed these days, I never really *loved* the S1) - it was a revelation. Much better built, good strong reliable engine (with plenty of poke), and mine had a hardtop. I don't like convertibles, and not bothered about roof-off motoring.

So after getting on so well with the VXT, the logical next move was an S2 Exige. Had to have a supercharged car because I like a bit of torque, and the car looks like it's going 80 mph when standing still, so needed to have the engine to back up the looks...

The S2 Exiges don't have the hewn-from-solid feel of the 993 Porkers - but the 993 was very over-engineered and an awesome quality car (and a lot more expensive than the Lotus when new). But the S2 Exige doesn't feel like Lotuses of old - my two felt very well bolted together. They don't leak (well my new one did for a few days, fixed under warranty), the aircon demists a steamed up interior within a couple of minutes (this makes the car viable as a daily driver and I'd say that aircon is essential if you want to *use* your car regularly), and Toyota engines mean you can forget about reliability 'niggles'. The S2 just works. Trim is reasonably spartan, but so were the 993s. Don't expect Boxster or 996-onward luxuries, but expect a utilitarian cabin like an air-cooled 911. The ProBax seats in the Exige are very good if you fit them. I do, and 400 mile drives are perfectly comfortable for me.

Two things I'd highly recommend if you want to use your car year-round - for a start, investigate replacement tyres. Decide whether you want to run winter tyres in winter and the standard-fit cut-slicks in summer, or whether you want one tyre year-round (the A048R as supplied by Lotus as standard-fit equipment is NOT clever in the winter). The annoyance of owning two sets of rims and tyres is offset by the fact that using proper cold-weather tyres in winter and trackday stickies in summer gives you the best performance of the car year-round, and safety. Secondly, do ask yourself whether you'd like open-top motoring. If you do, then an Elise (available with supercharger too) may be a better bet than the Exige. Both cars can be set up the same way. I personally don't like Exiges with their roofs off, but it's possible if you have to...

The only single thing that gets in the way of the Exige being a perfect daily driver is ease of ingress / egress. If you park in a car park with tight spaces and someone in a big car / SUV parks close to you, then getting in and out can be entertaining. It's easy enough if you're slim and not excessively tall, but if you're fat (or impaired in flexibility / mobility for other reasons) then getting in and out when you can't open the door fully can be tricky. I parked in a multi-storey today and someone with a new Fiat 500 in bright white paint parked 4 inches from the driver's side of my Exige. I didn't want to leave orange witness marks on his new Fiat so had a right laugh folding myself into my car I'm very slim and agile though - some people would have been stuck in this situation.

Of course, if you're a big lad then you can just open the door, wind the window down, take the handbrake off / take the car out of gear, and then just push it out of the parking space until you can get in Even the fattest S2 Exige S with touring packs etc. comes in below 1000 kg so it's easy to push about if needed

Elises, of course, give you the 'roof off and jump in from above' option.

Pre 2008 cars without airbags can also be fitted with removable steering wheels (my last car had one - I loved it - good security feature too), but it's a right problem with an airbag wheel (insurance is problematic). If you're big then the removable steering wheel is handy to make it a lot easier to get in... but actually makes it harder to get *out* because the steering wheel is often used as leverage to pull yourself out of the car.

I'd happily use mine every day for any use - even commuting the couple of miles to the railway station - if I had to. The aircon in an Exige clears the screen well, they don't leak, and they're reliable with Toyota engines. With sensible tyres on, even a boring short drive in traffic is invigorating in an Exige... all those old Lotus faults have been banished and they're really *usable*, so long as you don't have children or large luggage to carry around. I love mine, and wouldn't consider going back to Porsche now

[Grinnders]

I think the advice you give about winter tyres is good and recommended elsewhere. The car comes with good R888s so optimistically I'll be okay until the autumn. Perhaps I'll keep my eyes open over the summer and look for some rims ready for winter rubber.

[dom180]

I want an Exige now....

Slightly off-topic but would an S1 plus a k-series rebuild every 18 months cost less overall incl. de/appreciation than an S2 S or would would the S2 work out cheaper overall...?

Mount Ventoux on a hot day in an S1 could be interesting but from a fiscal perspective, anyone care to call it?

[Grinnders]

S1 Exiges seem to have bottomed out at £20k. I struggle mentally to spend £20k on a car thats 10 years old AND as rudimentary as the S1 (and I had an S1 Elise)

[The Bandit]

Dom my S in two years has cost the grand total of £500 in maintenance(two services £250 a go at main dealer)and in 18k miles has used one set of pads and one set of tyres(£100 and £450 respectively).
It gets tracked at least 6 times a year and did the last Stelvio.
Its never let me down,caused me any problems or cost me any money.Its the most reliable car i have ever had(been better than the 2 Audis i had).
I bought it new in 2008 and I got offered £19.5k for it by a main dealer before Christmas.
Used values still seem rock steady,you could buy a year old one,run it for two years and lose very little.
Mind you an S1 will hold its value better as its bottomed out on its depreciation.
Reliability wise you're not comparing apples with apples as an S1 will be 10yrs old but from experience the 08MY onwards cars are very well built(a mate has an 08 SC thats been faultless as well other than the crappy Lotus exhaust).
You pays your money...

Sorry,back on topic

Edited by The Bandit on Saturday 27th February 22:03

[dom180]

The Bandit said:

Dom my S in two years has cost the grand total of £500 in maintenance(two services £250 a go at main dealer)and in 18k miles has used one set of pads and one set of tyres(£100 and £450 respectively).
It gets tracked at least 6 times a year and did the last Stelvio.
Its never let me down,caused me any problems or cost me any money.Its the most reliable car i have ever had(been better than the 2 Audis i had).
I bought it new in 2008 and I got offered £19.5k for it by a main dealer before Christmas.
Used values still seem rock steady,you could buy a year old one,run it for two years and lose very little.
Mind you an S1 will hold its value better as its bottomed out on its depreciation.
Reliability wise you're not comparing apples with apples as an S1 will be 10yrs old but from experience the 08MY onwards cars are very well built(a mate has an 08 SC thats been faultless as well other than the crappy Lotus exhaust).
You pays your money...

Sorry,back on topic

Edited by The Bandit on Saturday 27th February 22:03

Exige not Elise Paul... Thanks for the info though - I had the same experience with my k-series S2 - initial depreciation was really low and linear each year. Yours looked good on Stelvio in black with the forged alloys.

Back onto the Exige, my gut feel is that an S1 Exige would cost a fortune to keep in good shape, and would take a while to get in shape/be reliable and there's always the spectre of the engine going pop at vast expense but if anyone thinks that an S1 Exige would actually work out cheaper than a used S2 Exige S doing say 6,000 miles a year and a few track days/Hillclimbs, I'd be interested to hear.

Edited by dom180 on Saturday 27th February 22:18

[The Bandit]

Whoops,sorry,put 2 and 2 together and got 6

[dom180]

The Bandit said:

Whoops,sorry,put 2 and 2 together and got 6

I think my post was a bit ambiguous.....

[Echo66]

Had my Exige S for nearly 18months as a DD & done 15k in it. Gets driven quite hard when conditions allow. Replaced the AO48's 14mnths ago due to the bad weather & won't go back to them now. On Conti Sport 2's as a great all round tyre. I've had to park it at home for the huge amount of snow over beginning of Jan but i am fortunate to have a 4x4 as a spare.

As a DD it works for me, apart from the snow as above but its expected as i live quite rural. Current plethora of pot holes following the winter means driving off the front of the bonnet atm dodging the sodding things but apart from that the only compromise you make is visibility to rear. That is something i got used to quite quickly though.

Go for it, you will love it. Best decision i ever made.

[Boggy]

997c2scab said:

Guys,

Been thinking about buying an Exige.
New to Lotus having had Porsche's before and was looking for some help.

Does anyone have / had a Exige and used it as a daily driver? Will be a 2nd car however I like to drive my cars rather than leaving the in the garage.

Can anyone confirm service intervals both mileage & time scales and associated cost.
Would you keep main dealer history or are using specialist seen as acceptable without affecting resale cost? Based in Milton Keynes / Northamptonshire Border and would seem that some good specialists around here?

Looking to spend around £23k - Have seen this one advertised which looked to be what I am after - http://www.pistonheads.com/sales/1519113.htm - Anyone know the car?

Car was originally reg'd to Lotus....Is this a good or bad thing? Also last service was at 11k miles back in 2008 should it have been done since?

Sorry to ask so many questions, if anyone can share any other info regarding Lotus ownership it is most appreciated

Regards

Mike

Nothing wrong with that Exige S just a badly written advert, I know about it and it is an Ex Dream Machines car. Call the advertiser and ask about the history etc. Make your own mind up, if it sounds dodge then obviously walk away

Boggy

[Dick Seaman]

Another satisfied customer here. Loved mine. Used it almost daily for a couple of years in all weathers. Reliable, (relatively) cheap running costs, and always fun. Bought it 1 yr old for £24k, sold 2 yrs later for £19k.

Genuinely miss it, will have another at some point.

[Grinnders]

Boggy. you have PM