📓 Journals My DV Emira and modifications

[Time2Fly]

The rear is way easier than the front bumper. Just pull out and away from the car just at the top rear of the wheel arch.

 

[JonFuller]

Fitted all the carbon I've received so far (still waiting on price & delivery for the std shaped sills / skirts in CF), I find Aerie very slow and frustrating to deal with. Their comms are atrocious.

Wasn't crazy keen on the attachment method for the hex mesh in the rear diffuser surround if I'm honest, though the finished result looks fine, it's just knowing some of the behind-the-scenes bits are not as nice as they could be.

Thanks to Time2Fly for his advance help on pulling it all appart, that helped a lot.

Quite pleased with how these bits go together with my custom carbon wheel & bonnet badges, Emira FE badge etc.

 

[JonFuller]

I also decided to look into this main wiring loom / plug issue that has caused so much aggro for some folk.

It seems, at least some of the looms were supplied with the neoprene seal missing in the large, lock together plug, located under the hood .

This plug is effectively a join in the loom, where this portion of the loom is mounted vertically, just ahead of the bulkhead / below the fuse box/HVAC.
Being vertical, gravity plays it's part in this tale, with the offending water trickling down that bit of loom, straight onto the plug.

It's a 'perfect storm' situation, as it's located directly below the gutter system at the foot of the windshield, where the design of the plastic stuff tasked with getting rid of water draining from the windshield, into the skuttle area if frankly a bit crap.

So if you have a very heavy downpour, or are keen on using big hoses, or pressure washers when cleaning your car, there's a very good chance you'll overwhelm that rather inadequate windshield drainage system, and water will end up bypassing the desired chanel & spilling over the fuse box assy, and running down the vertically mounted wiring loom and over/onto this large plastic plug (probably has 50 wires in it).
So if your car happens to have a faulty plug (seal missing), or your fuse box doesn't have the lid correctly fitted (it's in a very tight location, and very hard to remove/refit the lid properly.....It's doable, but difficult), there's a chance you'll end up with water ingress into one or both of these items.

Each wire going in / out of the big plug has neoprene, or silicone seals around them, so if water does find it's way in due to the main, mating seal being defective, or missing, the plug fills with water, but the water can't get out because the seals around each wire at the lower end 'are' doing their job, so the plug 'fills up'. not good.

I was sent a picture of a plug that had suffered this failure, and a video of a fuse box being 'emptied' after being found full of water. This scared the shit outt'a me, sufficiently to prompt me to check my own car to see if I was in line for some unwanted aggro.
I'm a tart, so my car doesn't really go out in the rain (unless I get caught out), and, is garaged, plus I'm very careful when cleaning it (no pressure wash, and minimal hose use), so thought I was most likely OK.

Here's how it CAN turn out.... (these were sent to me by a friend at a Lotus dealership)

The nightmare being, to replace these looms/plugs (main one through the car, and the front one it plugs into) requires the entire interior to be stripped out, and these things never go back together quite like they should, so I was very keen to avoid this....Not to metion the considerable time your car might be off the road while all this takes place, allbeit under warranty (for now at least).

 

[JonFuller]

Fortunately, mine was all dry, shiney & clean, but prevention is WAY better than cure, so....

I made my own version of the Lotus recal 'fix' for this issue, which is a large rubber sheet that's fitted below the offending plastic guttering, and above all this delicate wiring & fuse box etc, which forces water run-off to a safe location, as was originally intended by the std, inadequate plastic crap.

I also sprayed WD in and around the big plug, and slipped a long chunk of motorcycle innertube over that vertical loom, before re plugging it together, then pulled the rubber tube down over the plug, so it's protected from splashing too. (top end of the innertube ends well up under the protective rubber sheet, so zero likely hood of water finding it's way in from the top)

To be fair, the plug's location actually means it's quite well protected from everything except that water that escapes the windshield drainage system, so my innertube thing was just a belt & braces insurance policy.
Access to all this, is by removing the front undertray btw, once this is removed, it's all pretty easy to get at.

With the rubber matt in place, plus innertube, plus a good helping of WD in the plug, I'm now quite comfortable that my loom/plug/fuse box are safe..... Fingers crossed.

My advice to anyone who's happy doing a bit of their own spanner work, is to get that car up off the deck, whip the undertray off, and check your plug.

 

[Whitey]

Thanks for this Jon. This is exactly what happened to my first Emira which went back to the factory to be taken apart and fixed. They had the car for 2.5 months before I lost patience and was going to reject it. At the 11th hour they replaced it with same spec later build car last Sept. Now 7k miles in and all ok, hvac done, cover etc. I will take a look at this loom plug over winter.

 

[JonFuller]

Thanks for this Jon. This is exactly what happened to my first Emira which went back to the factory to be taken apart and fixed. They had the car for 2.5 months before I lost patience and was going to reject it. At the 11th hour they replaced it with same spec later build car last Sept. Now 7k miles in and all ok, hvac done, cover etc. I will take a look at this loom plug over winter.

Mine is a September (1st) 2023 car too (late August build), but didn't have the rubber weather shield revision, hence me making my own.

I'm surprised this revision / recal isn't a more urgent thing for Lotus, you'd think it could save them SOOO much money, aggro, reputation etc, to get this sorted on every car ASAP, before they turn into a nightmare....ho hum.