Air con known issue -no fix yet [EDIT: now with official fix]

[Go Kart]

I also read somewhere that the side of the car the resistor funnel would be on may not affect water intrusion as much depending on it being a left hand or right hand drive car. Don’t know if there’s any merit to that.

 

[Go Kart]

Here's an image from the service manual for removing the windshield. It doesn't show those wings on either side of the central boxy thing like you have that covers all that stuff you can see in this graphic.
View attachment 42498

This is another pic (@KJD) from 8/2023 showing the same looking wing pieces from above.

Don’t mind the red circle, but zoom in on the yellow circle. I wonder if this hole is present on both sides of the wing pieces? That is a water funnel if I’ve ever seen one

 

[Shahaf2911]

View attachment 42503

that’s exactly the picture I was referring to I looked for it for quite a while well done!
And unfortunately I already put the cover and charger on the car as I’m flying back home.. but it looks exactly the same on both sides here’s a close up if it helps

Because mine and the old picture + the red car all seem the same I have a feeling the part is underneath these plastic parts (just an assumption), if someone who has it installed can open up their bonnet it would really help!

 

[KJD]

This is another pic (@KJD) from 8/2023 showing the same looking wing pieces from above.

View attachment 42503

Don’t mind the red circle, but zoom in on the yellow circle. I wonder if this hole is present on both sides of the wing pieces? That is a water funnel if I’ve ever seen one

Your yellow circle is where the screen washer pipe and heater wires come through, and yes, there is one on both sides.

Here’s another pic of that area stripped (from my windscreen replacement adventures)

That hole is directly above the hvac assembly (on my rhd car) so it could be the weak point…

 

[seriously]

I keep staring at the pictures looking at the circle and still don't know what I'm looking at.

A before and after would be helpful! I love that the forum is trying to fix this since Lotus is lagging.

 

[Go Kart]

I keep staring at the pictures looking at the circle and still don't know what I'm looking at.

A before and after would be helpful! I love that the forum is trying to fix this since Lotus is lagging.

Well, we know people have had the repair done for a while and we still haven’t gotten any pics of that. It doesn’t help that the hood/bonnet isn’t all that easy to open up.

Here are 4 points I can see with my little eyes that might see water intrusion depending on how forceful the water drains from the windshield… zoom in as far as you can at the tip of the red arrow in the first pic to see the most likely point of ingress imo. According to KJD there are identical holes on each side where the washer fluid tips come up out of that shroud… and it’s the closest to the windshield of all 4 holes I can see. The farthest holes from the windshield literally look like funnels.

In the below pic the farther holes that appear in the first pic (represented as blue circles) could also see water ingress depending on how hard the water drains if there’s a lot of it. The arrows represent water flow, and it looks like the water would roll back down that ramp in the second picture once draining into the farthest holes. The blue circles represent where the holes would be if the cowl was installed.

Before/after repair pics of the fix would be ideal, but we don’t have the luxury of that info yet. Maybe they now have grommets or plugs?

There also might be smaller holes in these cowls that we can’t see in these pics, so there’s that too

 

[Nova]

Alright folks, here's what I did to my car before driving it out in the rain today. I don't actually know if this solves anything. For all I know, the water leak could be somewhere else. But this is what I have done for now.

Some additional background information. First here's a photo of the resistor pack. It's on the left hand driver side, mounted to the side of the HVAC unit. It's actually fairly easy to access, I think, once you remove a few panels. I don't think 10 hours of disassembly/reassembly is required.

Here is my water flow analysis.

As you can see, my temporary fix focuses on the gaps and seams on this cover, as well as the wire loom for the washer spray head heater.

 

[Go Kart]

Alright folks, here's what I did to my car before driving it out in the rain today. I don't actually know if this solves anything. For all I know, the water leak could be somewhere else. But this is what I have done for now.

View attachment 42786

Some additional background information. First here's a photo of the resistor pack. It's on the left hand driver side, mounted to the side of the HVAC unit. It's actually fairly easy to access, I think, once you remove a few panels. I don't think 10 hours of disassembly/reassembly is required.

View attachment 42787

Here is my water flow analysis.

View attachment 42789

As you can see, my temporary fix focuses on the gaps and seams on this cover, as well as the wire loom for the washer spray head heater.

If you can, do some experiments with a pitcher of water (or hose ).
See what gets wet and what doesn’t?

Nice analysis Nova! I seriously love car communities for this very thing. It’s great talking about fun cars, but trying to problem solve is the single best aspect of car forums imo.

 

[seriously]

@Nova this is exactly the kind of thing we need to do. Once you finish testing I would use black electrical tape. Painter tape is easier to see for testing though.

 

[Nova]

Right, this was a quick and dirty fix. I need to spend some more time with it before I am confident enough to pour water on it. Maybe in the next week or so I will pop the hood back open and give it another look.

 

[Nova]

@Nova this is exactly the kind of thing we need to do. Once you finish testing I would use black electrical tape. Painter tape is easier to see for testing though.

What I don't like about electrical tape is residue. I am going to spend some time researching a better tape. I wish they made blue painters tape in black vinyl.

 

[seriously]

What I don't like about electrical tape is residue. I am going to spend some time researching a better tape. I wish they made blue painters tape in black vinyl.

A combination of tape or black silicone sealant up top. I wonder if you could get to the parts that fail and just silicone those seals, too. It's always easy to remove if you to service something. Last hack would be to figure out what kind of drain holes they put in other lotus- was this ever an issue on the Evora? and add those proactively also.

Flex seal should partner with Lotus

 

[Martylemoo]

I just took some pictures of my car that the dealer said on Wednesday has had the shield installed. I have never lifted the front before so unsure what is different.

 

[seriously]

I just took some pictures of my car that the dealer said on Wednesday has had the shield installed. I have never lifted the front before so unsure what is different.

It looks like they added black silicone along the water path in the second picture. Anyone else agree?

 

[Nova]

I just took some pictures of my car that the dealer said on Wednesday has had the shield installed. I have never lifted the front before so unsure what is different.

I can't see any differences…

 

[Martylemoo]

Me either, unless it’s something around the resistor pack under those covers.

They definitely said it was a part that they were waiting on stock for. When I went and collected the car the message was they had done the update, removed the part from another car that was in long term.
So I have no idea.

 

[Eagle7]

If someone has access to the service parts order system, or a friendly dealer who will show them, there has to be a picture of it along with the TSB and part number. It would be good to know what it looks like.

 

[Cwolf]

If someone has access to the service parts order system, or a friendly dealer who will show them, there has to be a picture of it along with the TSB and part number. It would be good to know what it looks like.

I just dropped mine off at the dealer yesterday and he showed me pictures of what they were going to do and what parts added, but the pictures were not good and I couldn't really tell. Once I pick it up I will provide more detail, but basically they add a couple parts to shield/divert water. Hopefully I will have it back in a couple weeks as they have to order the parts from Lotus.

 

[tnbuilder]

I just dropped mine off at the dealer yesterday and he showed me pictures of what they were going to do and what parts added, but the pictures were not good and I couldn't really tell. Once I pick it up I will provide more detail, but basically they add a couple parts to shield/divert water. Hopefully I will have it back in a couple weeks as they have to order the parts from Lotus.

I wonder how all of this information is pushed out from Lotus and if all dealers now know if this? I inquired the first of last week at mine, said there was nothing. May I ask who is your dealer? I may call it to try and get a bulletin number or whatever they go by.

 

[Eagle7]

I wonder when they figured this out and started adding those shields? Mine has a build date of December 2023. Hopefully I have the updated sealed resistor already.