My Emira Experience

[New to Lotus]

I am sure the issues are mainly down to how the car is built, it's still very much hand built ca but now with 50% of the workforce having no car building experience.

 

[SteveB]

I went on a factory tour and was disappointed to see just ONE robot on the production line which was used to fit the roof. Everything else is done by hand which increases the probability of human error from the newly trained staff which is what is showing in some of the faults being reported. A lot of the parts are coming from China and are proving unreliable. The whole factory needs a major overhaul before there is likely to be any improvement.

I have been concerned for some time now that Geely, Lotus owners, might be putting pressure on Lotus management to source cheap electrical components from China. This is only conjecture on my part but would make sense from a profitability perspective. If cheap electrical components are being used (ECU’s, oxygen sensors, wiper motors, fan motors etc) then its inevitable that quality will suffer as a consequence. I have some experience of this in the case of motorbike engine ignition systems. A few years ago cheap Chinese stator coil units to suit Honda CR250 motorcross bikes flooded the market but they would rarely last more than a couple of hours run time before failing. By comparison the more expensive Honda originals lasted for years. I really hope that the multitude of electrical problems currently affecting the Lotus Emira are not a consequence of cheap, inferior quality, electrical components!

 

[Ftype]

I have been concerned for some time now that Geely, Lotus owners, might be putting pressure on Lotus management to source cheap electrical components from China. This is only conjecture on my part but would make sense from a profitability perspective. If cheap electrical components are being used (ECU’s, oxygen sensors, wiper motors, fan motors etc) then its inevitable that quality will suffer as a consequence. I have some experience of this in the case of motorbike engine ignition systems. A few years ago cheap Chinese stator coil units to suit Honda CR250 motorcross bikes flooded the market but they would rarely last more than a couple of hours run time before failing. By comparison the more expensive Honda originals lasted for years. I really hope that the multitude of electrical problems currently affecting the Lotus Emira are not a consequence of cheap, inferior quality, electrical components!

I was told at the factory that wrong parts with a long lead time had arrived from China and were causing further delays in getting the cars out to customers

 

[GAVLA]

2000 miles on the clock and not a single issue apart from the wipers.... I know that I'm one of the lucky few but I wouldn't change a thing to add to the Emira experience!

 

[JayEmm]

Lotus can get perfectly bad parts sourced locally

 

[paul c]

2000 miles on the clock and not a single issue apart from the wipers.... I know that I'm one of the lucky few but I wouldn't change a thing to add to the Emira experience!

1600 miles for me and it’s been brilliant. I’ve got a Vw transporter and if you go on the t6/1 forum you only hear of the faults , puts buyers off but Vw probably has few hundred thousand satisfied customers , be good to see how many satisfied emira customers l like you me and Harry metcalf

 

[Hobiedick]

I have been concerned for some time now that Geely, Lotus owners, might be putting pressure on Lotus management to source cheap electrical components from China. This is only conjecture on my part but would make sense from a profitability perspective. If cheap electrical components are being used (ECU’s, oxygen sensors, wiper motors, fan motors etc) then its inevitable that quality will suffer as a consequence. I have some experience of this in the case of motorbike engine ignition systems. A few years ago cheap Chinese stator coil units to suit Honda CR250 motorcross bikes flooded the market but they would rarely last more than a couple of hours run time before failing. By comparison the more expensive Honda originals lasted for years. I really hope that the multitude of electrical problems currently affecting the Lotus Emira are not a consequence of cheap, inferior quality, electrical components!

My car is on it's 3rd ECU, they are apparently from Italy!!!

 

[moley44]

This has been posted elsewhere, so please excuse any reference to previous posts etc...

Apologies, this is a long post and I should issue a trigger warning for those who cannot see beyond a Lotus badge...
Today is the fourth happiest day of my Emira ownership. Following multiple delays and many promises that it'll be with you "soon", I was happy when it finally turned up on Jan 5th.

Once fully PPF'd and ceramic coated, the second time I was happy was when I collected it, and that's when things started to go downhill...

• Tracker not working - Fixed following a home visit by a Scorpion field engineer
• Clicking/tapping noise from the dash and engine bay
• Mechanical noise on full lock
• Bubbled finish on the dash surround - B&C ordered a replacement (it was on backorder)
• Passenger side wind whistle over 50mph
• Door seals/carpet poor fit
• Random disconnects when using Android Auto
• Wiper speed issue - well documented, but still no fix
• Hill Start Assist error
• Dash vents for demisting side windows not working/weird ventilation issues generally
• ESC error, limp mode - more times than I care to remember over 727 miles
• OSF brake pad issue - B&C replaced the pads and cleaned up the disc
• Driver's door paint blisters that are getting worse - I'd hoped that this was a thing of the past with the alleged state-of-the-art paint facilities at Hethel, but obviously not
• HVAC stuck on full heat
• SOS System Service error

Granted, the majority of items on the list are little more than inconvenient issues, but ESC randomly switching off and the car going into limp mode is potentially dangerous and could be challenging legally should the worst happen, as could the wiper issue. As far as the paint blisters are concerned, who wants a brand-new car to be repainted?
I cannot fault B&C, they had no option other than to follow the Lotus field engineer's recommendations to replace the battery and update the software. It soon became apparent on the drive home that this had not addressed the variety of errors that appeared on the dash, but it had also introduced a new problem, the heating is now stuck on full heat, regardless of the settings.

Following many emails and calls with Lotus Customer Care (the least said about them the better) I was offered three options:

• Keep trying to fix it, with no guarantee of a fix and no clear plan other than keep throwing parts/software at it and paint the door
• Get me into another Emira, a cancelled order not the same as my spec
• Reject the car and receive a refund

I decided that a refund was the right option for me, as Lotus was unable to convince me that anything material had changed on the production line that would ensure a replacement would be any better. The lack of fixes for the majority of the issues and no apparent timeline for when the updates would be available did little to build my confidence that the next software update would address the issues. I'm aware that there are quite a few Emira owners with cars built months after mine facing many of the same issues. They're having sensors, ECUs, wiring harnesses, etc replaced and software updates applied with mixed results, so I'm happy with my choice.

As I said in a previous post when the issues started to appear...how can customer cars have so many common problems? It feels like early customers are doing the real-world testing, despite all the talk of a new production facility, QC at every step, thousands of laps of the test track and however many development cars racking up many miles on road tests, etc.

The third happiest day of this disappointing experience came when I finally received my refund. It was a long drawn-out process that never progressed unless I kicked Customer Care every step of the way. They have no idea what is going on in other departments and will tell you whatever they think you want to hear to get off the phone or answer emails in such a vague manner that they commit to nothing. From a customer's point of view, it appears that the left hand has no idea what the right hand is doing at Lotus Cars.

You would think that having eventually done the decent thing and paid out the invoice value of the car plus the detailing/PPF costs that I had incurred they'd be keen to collect the car...again, it took me kicking them to finally get this actioned. I fully expect that the car would still have been with me next month at this time if I hadn't pushed to get the car collected.

This brings us to today, the fourth happiest day. The car has finally been collected and I can put this disappointment behind me. It had been arranged that the car was going to be collected last Friday AM, but Customer Care didn't think to inform me that it had not been booked, leading to half a day stuck at home needlessly and me once again chasing Customer Care to find out what was going on.

This was my third Lotus bought from new and it will be my last. The previous two were not exactly high-quality items, they had their fair share of issues, some more serious than others, but I fell for the good looks of the Emira and the promises of much improved QC, but the reality of ownership is something that I could have happily done without. It will be interesting to see how things go once American customers start receiving their cars.

If Hethel hopes to compete and survive in the market that Lotus are positioning its products in they'd better up their game considerably before Geely decides that they can do better out of China.

As I type this, there are 38 Emira's on Autotrader, with a selection available under £80k and some of them haven't even been run in yet. Quite a few have been advertised for months and they're not exactly flying out of the showrooms, despite price reductions. Sure, there will be some flippers cars amongst them, who in my opinion deserve to take a financial hit, but still!

I can only hope that others enjoy a better experience than I have had and that their cars live up to the marketing hype.

View attachment 27827

A real shame and sorry you had so many issues. I was caught up in the good looks and early reviews of the Emira, especially Harry's Garage where he had no issues to speak of after putting a couple of thousand miles on it.

This is not a cheap car, yet the problems appear to be numerous and many attributable to poor build quality. Customer service, or lack thereof, sounds on a whole other level of incompetence. I was a potential US buyer but cancelled due to a lack of confidence in the vehicle and the scarcity and geographical distance of dealers in the US. Any problems would have taken forever. As a Brit living in the US, if you, living in England, cannot get good results form an iconic UK-based car manufacturer then it is going to be a real problem over here!

Glad you got a full refund including the PPF. What are you going to replace it with or did I miss that part?

 

[Xspyder]

This has been posted elsewhere, so please excuse any reference to previous posts etc...

Apologies, this is a long post and I should issue a trigger warning for those who cannot see beyond a Lotus badge...
Today is the fourth happiest day of my Emira ownership. Following multiple delays and many promises that it'll be with you "soon", I was happy when it finally turned up on Jan 5th.

Once fully PPF'd and ceramic coated, the second time I was happy was when I collected it, and that's when things started to go downhill...

• Tracker not working - Fixed following a home visit by a Scorpion field engineer
• Clicking/tapping noise from the dash and engine bay
• Mechanical noise on full lock
• Bubbled finish on the dash surround - B&C ordered a replacement (it was on backorder)
• Passenger side wind whistle over 50mph
• Door seals/carpet poor fit
• Random disconnects when using Android Auto
• Wiper speed issue - well documented, but still no fix
• Hill Start Assist error
• Dash vents for demisting side windows not working/weird ventilation issues generally
• ESC error, limp mode - more times than I care to remember over 727 miles
• OSF brake pad issue - B&C replaced the pads and cleaned up the disc
• Driver's door paint blisters that are getting worse - I'd hoped that this was a thing of the past with the alleged state-of-the-art paint facilities at Hethel, but obviously not
• HVAC stuck on full heat
• SOS System Service error

Granted, the majority of items on the list are little more than inconvenient issues, but ESC randomly switching off and the car going into limp mode is potentially dangerous and could be challenging legally should the worst happen, as could the wiper issue. As far as the paint blisters are concerned, who wants a brand-new car to be repainted?
I cannot fault B&C, they had no option other than to follow the Lotus field engineer's recommendations to replace the battery and update the software. It soon became apparent on the drive home that this had not addressed the variety of errors that appeared on the dash, but it had also introduced a new problem, the heating is now stuck on full heat, regardless of the settings.

Following many emails and calls with Lotus Customer Care (the least said about them the better) I was offered three options:

• Keep trying to fix it, with no guarantee of a fix and no clear plan other than keep throwing parts/software at it and paint the door
• Get me into another Emira, a cancelled order not the same as my spec
• Reject the car and receive a refund

I decided that a refund was the right option for me, as Lotus was unable to convince me that anything material had changed on the production line that would ensure a replacement would be any better. The lack of fixes for the majority of the issues and no apparent timeline for when the updates would be available did little to build my confidence that the next software update would address the issues. I'm aware that there are quite a few Emira owners with cars built months after mine facing many of the same issues. They're having sensors, ECUs, wiring harnesses, etc replaced and software updates applied with mixed results, so I'm happy with my choice.

As I said in a previous post when the issues started to appear...how can customer cars have so many common problems? It feels like early customers are doing the real-world testing, despite all the talk of a new production facility, QC at every step, thousands of laps of the test track and however many development cars racking up many miles on road tests, etc.

The third happiest day of this disappointing experience came when I finally received my refund. It was a long drawn-out process that never progressed unless I kicked Customer Care every step of the way. They have no idea what is going on in other departments and will tell you whatever they think you want to hear to get off the phone or answer emails in such a vague manner that they commit to nothing. From a customer's point of view, it appears that the left hand has no idea what the right hand is doing at Lotus Cars.

You would think that having eventually done the decent thing and paid out the invoice value of the car plus the detailing/PPF costs that I had incurred they'd be keen to collect the car...again, it took me kicking them to finally get this actioned. I fully expect that the car would still have been with me next month at this time if I hadn't pushed to get the car collected.

This brings us to today, the fourth happiest day. The car has finally been collected and I can put this disappointment behind me. It had been arranged that the car was going to be collected last Friday AM, but Customer Care didn't think to inform me that it had not been booked, leading to half a day stuck at home needlessly and me once again chasing Customer Care to find out what was going on.

This was my third Lotus bought from new and it will be my last. The previous two were not exactly high-quality items, they had their fair share of issues, some more serious than others, but I fell for the good looks of the Emira and the promises of much improved QC, but the reality of ownership is something that I could have happily done without. It will be interesting to see how things go once American customers start receiving their cars.

If Hethel hopes to compete and survive in the market that Lotus are positioning its products in they'd better up their game considerably before Geely decides that they can do better out of China.

As I type this, there are 38 Emira's on Autotrader, with a selection available under £80k and some of them haven't even been run in yet. Quite a few have been advertised for months and they're not exactly flying out of the showrooms, despite price reductions. Sure, there will be some flippers cars amongst them, who in my opinion deserve to take a financial hit, but still!

I can only hope that others enjoy a better experience than I have had and that their cars live up to the marketing hype.

View attachment 27827

Hi Kennyn,
Just wanted to ask the question, how many miles had you covered before your awful experiences?

 

[kennyn]

Glad you got a full refund including the PPF. What are you going to replace it with or did I miss that part?

Thank you. No imminent plans for a replacement, as there's really nothing else catching my eye at the moment. I'm lucky enough to have other toys in the garage to keep me amused until the next car of interest comes along.

 

[kennyn]

Just wanted to ask the question, how many miles had you covered before your awful experiences?

I collected the car from being PPF'd mid-Jan and faults were apparent by early Feb, so I'd guess 200-300 miles or so.

 

[kitkat]

My car is on it's 3rd ECU, they are apparently from Italy!!!

Nobody at Lotus is there thinking, hmm, maybe replacing the ECU repeatedly isn’t the solution?

 

[Tokion]

Nobody at Lotus is there thinking, hmm, maybe replacing the ECU repeatedly isn’t the solution?

But still, just funny accent, and no Ferrari action

 

[Eagle7]

Nobody at Lotus is there thinking, hmm, maybe replacing the ECU repeatedly isn’t the solution?

The thing is, problems of this nature tend to be very time-consuming to troubleshoot, which is why they just replace the ECU hoping that's going to fix it. You're quite right though, after the 2nd one they should have taken a different approach.

What Lotus should have if they don't have this now, is to have a section of their R&D department setup to take these cars in and spend the time to go through them with a fine tooth comb and find out what the actual problem is. This would enable them to notify production as to what happened and why, so it can be remedied and not repeated. This is also very valuable for the design group to make sure future designs can avoid this problem. In addition, they should replace the customer's car completely with a new one, and write the cost of this off as part of their R&D budget.

 

[frazzer]

The thing is, problems of this nature tend to be very time-consuming to troubleshoot, which is why they just replace the ECU hoping that's going to fix it. You're quite right though, after the 2nd one they should have taken a different approach.

What Lotus should have if they don't have this now, is to have a section of their R&D department setup to take these cars in and spend the time to go through them with a fine tooth comb and find out what the actual problem is. This would enable them to notify production as to what happened and why, so it can be remedied and not repeated. This is also very valuable for the design group to make sure future designs can avoid this problem. In addition, they should replace the customer's car completely with a new one, and write the cost of this off as part of their R&D budget.

Indeed, you can't reduce variance unless you have a feedback loop

 

[Nova]

There should be a spreadsheet somewhere listing the build date, delivery date, and problems, if any. It would help us get a sense of issues affecting early cars and whether those were largely addressed.

 

[Porter]

There should be a spreadsheet somewhere listing the build date, delivery date, and problems, if any. It would help us get a sense of issues affecting early cars and whether those were largely addressed.

A problems registry would be an excellent tool. Even a Google Sheet would be decent for this, and could be used for some data analysis

 

[Toomanyloti]

Sam kindly provided my UK build sequence number but i think if it were asked 'en masse' the data would be hard to come by...

 

[Time2Fly]

Out on a pleasant drive and got all six ignition coils failed.

 

[Eagle7]

Out on a pleasant drive and got all six ignition coils failed.View attachment 50545

Is there a fuse to the ignition coils? Seems odd that all 6 would fail at the same time like that.