Lack of power steering on day one

[Tony g]

The issue suddenly returned in the middle of me, driving the car yesterday

It could be some air trapped in there, so I’m gonna take the car to the local service centre today to check it out

Hi, unfortunately you are not on your own. I picked up mine on Friday morning. The tour and whole factory pick up was excellent and I would give a big shout out to Scott and Sam for their professional and informative hand over. Initially I felt very sorry for one of my fellow new owners who’s power steering failed on the actual handover! So Scott lent him his own Emira to get home!
Unfortunately the same thing happened to me when I was 5 miles from home but 90 miles from Hethel.
Tried it again on Saturday morning and it was fine, so I called Scott who advised me not to drive it too far and he would call me on Tuesday to advise the next steps. Interestingly we were the only two autos of the hand over?
Any update on yours? Did you get to a lotus service centre?
Cheers Tony.

 

[CDM1855]

Hi, unfortunately you are not on your own. I picked up mine on Friday morning. The tour and whole factory pick up was excellent and I would give a big shout out to Scott and Sam for their professional and informative hand over. Initially I felt very sorry for one of my fellow new owners who’s power steering failed on the actual handover! So Scott lent him his own Emira to get home!
Unfortunately the same thing happened to me when I was 5 miles from home but 90 miles from Hethel.
Tried it again on Saturday morning and it was fine, so I called Scott who advised me not to drive it too far and he would call me on Tuesday to advise the next steps. Interestingly we were the only two autos of the hand over?
Any update on yours? Did you get to a lotus service centre?
Cheers Tony.

Mine failed at the handover, but I wasn’t sure if the heaviness was a characteristic of hydraulic steering initially so I drive off. Only later did it become very apparent that it could not possibly be normal

They are a shambles, how can so many cars have this steering failure. It’s odd that it’s the Autos that are failing, I think that is about 4 or 5 now I have heard of in under a week

I dropped my car off at a service centre on Saturday and will pick it up hopefully when I return from a business trip next week. Hopefully it’s just air that is trapped which is why it’s works one day and not the next, should find out in a day or two.

If it’s something more serious and they don’t have the parts, then there’s going to be some difficult conversations to be had with Lotus

 

[digilotus]

They are absolutely disaste

they are a shambles, how can so many cars have steering failure

Matt Windle needs to wake up fast and take control of the production at that place, or stop buying cheap components

I dropped my car off at a service centre on Saturday and will pick it up hopefully when I return from a business trip

Lets keep in mind that the power steering pump is from Toyota and ships bolted onto the engine from Japan.

 

[CDM1855]

Lets keep in mind that the power steering pump is from Toyota and ships bolted onto the engine from Japan.

Maybe but they need to be tested properly, clearly just driving for 3 mins over a bumpy mini track to hear for squeaks and rattles is not sufficient

 

[Lego Man]

Hi, unfortunately you are not on your own. I picked up mine on Friday morning. The tour and whole factory pick up was excellent and I would give a big shout out to Scott and Sam for their professional and informative hand over. Initially I felt very sorry for one of my fellow new owners who’s power steering failed on the actual handover! So Scott lent him his own Emira to get home!
Unfortunately the same thing happened to me when I was 5 miles from home but 90 miles from Hethel.
Tried it again on Saturday morning and it was fine, so I called Scott who advised me not to drive it too far and he would call me on Tuesday to advise the next steps. Interestingly we were the only two autos of the hand over?
Any update on yours? Did you get to a lotus service centre?
Cheers Tony.

That's so frustrating, it was a bit of a whirl on Friday for me, but I was grateful that I was able to leave in an Emira, Sam said there was no problem with my car when they were setting the cars up on Thursday night, but mine wasn't working as you say on Friday morning. I'll have to wait to hear from Scott on what the problem is when it will be fixed.

 

[lion shf]

Lets keep in mind that the power steering pump is from Toyota and ships bolted onto the engine from Japan.

It’s 100% not lotus’ fault

 

[Hethel Merman]

Maybe but they need to be tested properly, clearly just driving for 3 mins over a bumpy mini track to hear for squeaks and rattles is not sufficient

They use a 2.2 mile test track to test the cars to their limits, do they not? It's what makes Lotus cars unique, the same track used for testing by Ayrton Senna, Jim Clark, Emerson et al.
It's always been a great selling point. Maybe these pump cars got missed in the rush.

 

[lion shf]

They use a 2.2 mile test track to test the cars to their limits, do they not? It's what makes Lotus cars unique, the same track used for testing by Ayrton Senna, Jim Clark, Emerson et al.
It's always been a great selling point. Maybe these pump cars got missed in the rush.

They are def testing the cars properly before delivery.

 

[CDM1855]

They are def testing the cars properly before delivery.

The cars do not go on the test track

 

[Cutting42]

They use a 2.2 mile test track to test the cars to their limits, do they not? It's what makes Lotus cars unique, the same track used for testing by Ayrton Senna, Jim Clark, Emerson et al.
It's always been a great selling point. Maybe these pump cars got missed in the rush.

No they do not test the cars on that track. They have a separate test area and the car doesn't get much above 15mph. It has lumps and bumps and is mainly to check for creaks and squeaks and basic functions work.

 

[NicolasB]

They are def testing the cars properly before delivery.

How do you know this?

 

[Hell4Leather]

No they do not test the cars on that track. They have a separate test area and the car doesn't get much above 15mph. It has lumps and bumps and is mainly to check for creaks and squeaks and basic functions work.

This right here^^^. It’s basically an assload of speed bumps from side to side to twist and turn everything. One of the Lotus Promo videos showed the QA process; might have been Harry’s factory tour.

 

[Lotustoronto]

How do you know this?

I think that was sarcasm from lion shf haha

 

[770K]

I would guess Lotus have had a bad batch of pumps as I changed from home delivery to dealer and they picked up an issue when they did the PDI.

Collection is now next wednesday.

 

[lion shf]

How do you know this?

I’m guessing based on how few fails we’ve seen

 

[NicolasB]

I’m guessing based on how few fails we’ve seen

Your sarcasm was hard to read on that previous post, got it now

 

[Maurice R]

That's so frustrating, it was a bit of a whirl on Friday for me, but I was grateful that I was able to leave in an Emira, Sam said there was no problem with my car when they were setting the cars up on Thursday night, but mine wasn't working as you say on Friday morning. I'll have to wait to hear from Scott on what the problem is when it will be fixed.

Soon

 

[CHEESE]

On the subject of steering... does anyone know (or can someone measure) the horizontal diameter of the Emira steering wheel? I haven't been able to find that spec.

 

[Tony]

Afternoon all.

I had my manual car delivered last Tuesday and the steering failed after about twenty miles.

It’s been collected and returned to the closest centre, who have ordered a steering pump but can’t yet say when it’ll come in.

They say that they’ve not heard of any other cars than mine that have had the same issue, which is a surprise.

 

[CDM1855]

Afternoon all.

I had my manual car delivered last Tuesday and the steering failed after about twenty miles.

It’s been collected and returned to the closest centre, who have ordered a steering pump but can’t yet say when it’ll come in.

They say that they’ve not heard of any other cars than mine that have had the same issue, which is a surprise.

I have been without mine since April 29th, my local service centre waiting for the steering pump. Lotus likely don’t want to take a pump out of the factory, you may need to wait to get one from the service parts bin.

Seems to be quite a few now with faulty power steering. Wonderful QC at Hethel

Geely need to take a closer look at what is going on there