Poll for Those with Paint Blistering / Bubbling Defect

[Porter]

Being a selfish individual... do we have a consensus if the paint bubbling issue was resolved on later production cars? What's the most recently produced car that still has this issue?

I also want to know the answer to this. They need to publish their TSBs showing VIN ranges for this stuff, preferably via VSIC, as soon as possible.

 

[4MIR3]

view the poll... spoiler... nope, not fixed.

 

[EMIRADILEMMA]

view the poll... spoiler... nope, not fixed.

I believe the vote for 10/23 is a false result as it was cast sometime in September.

 

[Yas.totti10]

Update from today's conversation from Lotus HQ (more depth today)

It turns out HQ has a budget for what they want to spend on replacing the door panel together with the car needing a body shop to blend the paint plus detailing.

They advised me Lotus Silverstones warranty claim is too expensive.

They then tried to persuade me to go and ring around other Lotus dealerships to put a warranty claim in (Hoping their qoute would satisfy HQs budget). I dont know what this budget is??

I completely rejected their proposition and have filed a formal complaint with the warranty team.

My point is.... That Lotus HQ should do the leg work to resolve this matter or get the car recovered to HQ and do it themselves.

Extremely poor customer service still.

 

[Wonza]

Update from today's conversation from Lotus HQ (more depth today)

It turns out HQ has a budget for what they want to spend on replacing the door panel together with the car needing a body shop to blend the paint plus detailing.

They advised me Lotus Silverstones warranty claim is too expensive.

They then tried to persuade me to go and ring around other Lotus dealerships to put a warranty claim in (Hoping their qoute would satisfy HQs budget). I dont know what this budget is??

I completely rejected their proposition and have filed a formal complaint with the warranty team.

My point is.... That Lotus HQ should do the leg work to resolve this matter or get the car recovered to HQ and do it themselves.

Extremely poor customer service still.

Update from today's conversation from Lotus HQ (more depth today)

It turns out HQ has a budget for what they want to spend on replacing the door panel together with the car needing a body shop to blend the paint plus detailing.

They advised me Lotus Silverstones warranty claim is too expensive.

They then tried to persuade me to go and ring around other Lotus dealerships to put a warranty claim in (Hoping their qoute would satisfy HQs budget). I dont know what this budget is??

I completely rejected their proposition and have filed a formal complaint with the warranty team.

My point is.... That Lotus HQ should do the leg work to resolve this matter or get the car recovered to HQ and do it themselves.

Extremely poor customer service still.

Does Silverstone have their own bodyshop or do they contract it out?Totally mad, other Lotus dealers maybe million miles away. Lotus won’t take the car back to the factory to repair, I tried.

 

[Yas.totti10]

Does Silverstone have their own bodyshop or do they contract it out?Totally mad, other Lotus dealers maybe million miles away. Lotus won’t take the car back to the factory to repair, I tried.

Thanks for the info.

Silverstone does not. I cannot be expected to take my car 100 miles away to Bell and colville just because they have a body shop.

I am awaiting a phone call in 3 days.

I just appreciate having to chase this matter every step of the way.

Honestly if I had left them to it I wouldn't hear from Lotus HQ again.

Poor

 

[freefall_junkie]

Update from today's conversation from Lotus HQ (more depth today)

It turns out HQ has a budget for what they want to spend on replacing the door panel together with the car needing a body shop to blend the paint plus detailing.

They advised me Lotus Silverstones warranty claim is too expensive.

They then tried to persuade me to go and ring around other Lotus dealerships to put a warranty claim in (Hoping their qoute would satisfy HQs budget). I dont know what this budget is??

I completely rejected their proposition and have filed a formal complaint with the warranty team.

My point is.... That Lotus HQ should do the leg work to resolve this matter or get the car recovered to HQ and do it themselves.

Extremely poor customer service still.

This is shockingly bad customer service. Asking a customer of an £85k car to shop around to get a warranty claim resolved is totally unacceptable. Of all the tales of Lotus customer service incompetence in the last couple of years this is possibly the worst. You are quite right to make a formal complaint. I really hope Lotus do the right thing and get his resolved for you.

 

[frazzer]

I have blistering on my passenger side door (RHD). Reported it but need to follow up with B&C. A new door would have to be installed perfectly to ensure the gap is even all around and the window line matches up. Notoriously tricky in some cars - I don't know about the Emira. But a sand and make good job hardly seem appropriate of an 80k+ car in it's first year. Getting the time to get it sorted is as annoying as anything else.

 

[Yas.totti10]

EXCELLENT NEWS TODAY!!!

LOTUS HQ APPROVED SILVERSTONES WARRANTY CLAIM!

My paint blistering drivers door will be replaced and sorted in January.

The learning from my experience is being persistent and standing your ground!!!!!

 

[Porter]

I still don't understand why Lotus aren't fixing these at Hethel. It's not like the cars are halfway around the world, it's literally local transport from anywhere in the UK. It's a small country.

For sanity check's sake... until a new dealer opened very recently, the closest Lotus dealers to me (including the dealer where I placed my order) were equivalent to the distance from Hethel to the Scottish border. And I live just outside Washington, DC in one of the most thriving and affluent markets in the entire US.

If Lotus considers a 5+ hour drive at full motorway speeds to be "local enough" to try to sell cars to customers at that distance in the US, they should DAMN WELL be able to recover a car within their own country, particularly to effect a major body panel replacement repair.

And it absolutely should be done with a factory repaint, not some collision repair shop's best effort at a paint match and blend. The car's value will (and should) be permanently affected by that sort of approach, just as though you'd had a major collision. Who is going to pay for the reduced value??

 

[FlashingBlade]

I spoke with my dealer today and they said they've had quite a few doors replaced, including one customer who required both doors replacing, and they said Lotus havent pushed back at all. There was one very early on whereby they asked for it to be transported down to Hethel for inspection but since then they've just authorised the replacements. I guess they've accepted that this is a problem and now just authorise it.

Resistor packs on the air con is also a common issue with a good few cars having to had them replaced.

They're collecting the car from my house and asked if I wanted a transporter (at my cost) or would be happy with someone driving it back ot the dealers.

 

[kitkat]

I spoke with my dealer today and they said they've had quite a few doors replaced, including one customer who required both doors replacing, and they said Lotus havent pushed back at all. There was one very early on whereby they asked for it to be transported down to Hethel for inspection but since then they've just authorised the replacements. I guess they've accepted that this is a problem and now just authorise it.

Resistor packs on the air con is also a common issue with a good few cars having to had them replaced.

They're collecting the car from my house and asked if I wanted a transporter (at my cost) or would be happy with someone driving it back ot the dealers.

I'm almost certain that with every online report we see there's a whole lot more problems that aren't on here. I just wish we could get a better idea of if this is a persistent ongoing issue or something solved.

 

[robrmon]

Based on the results of the survey, I’ve mentally moved into the “solved” category.

 

[VulcanGrey]

Hopefully this makes some feel better about the Emira paint quality.

 

[kitkat]

Hopefully this makes some feel better about the Emira paint quality.

I'll take finishing imperfections over paint bubbling -- and also who is to say the Emira doesn't also have paint imperfections?

 

[scoates]

Just heard from the body shop the missing seals are being delivered next week and then the door replacement will be completed and should be able to pick my car up soon after! Going to do a very thorough inspection of the paint quality to make sure it is an exact match on the blended panels so hopefully will be all good to go soon!

 

[Yas.totti10]

Just heard from the body shop the missing seals are being delivered next week and then the door replacement will be completed and should be able to pick my car up soon after! Going to do a very thorough inspection of the paint quality to make sure it is an exact match on the blended panels so hopefully will be all good to go soon!

Brilliant news

Please share what to look out for to help others on this thread

 

[scoates]

Brilliant news

Please share what to look out for to help others on this thread

Once I have the car back and checked over I'll do a post detailing the whole process, what I saw and when, who I contacted etc and the steps and timeline towards a resolution

 

[Wonza]

Just heard from the body shop the missing seals are being delivered next week and then the door replacement will be completed and should be able to pick my car up soon after! Going to do a very thorough inspection of the paint quality to make sure it is an exact match on the blended panels so hopefully will be all good to go soon!

Things to check. Window alignment important as it will whistle if not done properly. Panel gaps. Mirror flush. Check behind door handles for missing paint and any sanding blending in marks near the fresh air intake. I had all these issues and had to have the door painted twice. It’s doesn’t end there as my other door started blistering.

 

[Yas.totti10]

Once I have the car back and checked over I'll do a post detailing the whole process, what I saw and when, who I contacted etc and the steps and timeline towards a resolution

Top man!