Dealer experience with vibrating steering wheel

[paulhastings]

Just took my car to the dealer to have the wheels balanced. They initially told me the left front has a flat spot. I asked them to show me the flat spot and they could not. I asked them to show me the problem on the Hunter balance machine and after putting the wheel on wrong he pointed out my tire is like a potato. He says the wheel is ok because the maching would tell you if it's not. They are telling me I have driven the car too hard and I need to replace the front tires. The car has less then 900 miles and did not see anything over 4500 rpm for the first 600miles. I then followed the manual by using short bursts of maximum throttle using the full power range and then let the engine cool a few miles before another burst. So now whenever there is an issue the dealer will hold a totally inconclusive printout saying you have driven the car too hard? For those who know me over the years know this is totally ridiculous as I am notorious for caring for my vehicles. The tires look great and yes the edges are scrubbed a little. But, this is a sport pack car with soft tires. I have never had a sports car which didn't show a little side wear. Actually, this cannot be considered wear in my opinion. I think the car looked like this after just a few miles. So now I must take the car to a Yokohama dealer so that they can determine it's a defective tire and cover it under warranty.

The Elise is a wonderful car but, if you have to fight everytime you go to the dealer then one begins to wonder if it's worth it and if you should return to owning that reliable German sports car!

Anybody have an excellent dealer for service they would like to recommend. I am in Southern California and the further south the better.

[ChrisH]

Does that mean the dealer was Symbolic?

[paulhastings]

I will wait to see how this pans out before putting on a name. I am totally frustrated and upset but, I will give this particular dealer a chance to rectify the situation.

I cannot imagine what they will say to you once you have tracked the car!

[AutoXr]

I had a similar problem when I took delivery. The dealer claimed it was just a flat spot from sitting for awhile and not to worry. I was able to convince them that it wasn't a flat spot so they test drove it and agreed. Turns out the tire was off by 1.25 oz!!! Either it was never properly balanced or some weight fell off without leaving a trace . I later found that they were still off by 1/4 oz which was caught by the dealer who performed the 1000 mile checkup.

I would suspect that if it was ever right, the obvious things would be that you lost some weight or have a defective tire. The dealer should have stepped up and helped work through the problem instead of passing you off to the tire mfg.

Any possibility that this was simply an untrained tech or have other problems occured that would indicate a trend with this dealer?

[paulhastings]

For sure the first tech was not trained. First the service guy starts getting out of my car holding the windshield. The tech puts the tire on the machine wrong and tells me to watch how it spins. Well it was way out of wack. Then the senior Lotus tech comes over to assist. The senior tech then tells me the tire is worn from hard driving. He says, " I am not saying you are Mario Andretti but, you have driven this car very hard". Which is total BS! I have driven the car for break in and I can assure you this was not very hard. The tire wear looks perfect to me. They insist I drove the car hard while changing their story from flat spot to hard driving. So what happens when the first service is done and I am free to really drive the car as it was built for. I guess I will be chaning tires every few hundred miles.

I agree, they should have stepped up and handled the issue not held the printout which says nothing more then I have reached 7500rpm four times. This is still below readline and encouraged in the manual for short bursts.

Totally frustrated and a little sad I sold my 911. I had an amazing mechanic for the Porsche. In fact, I remember him telling me start driving the car when he looked at the 1000 miles I had on my new tires. He said he wanted to see some wear on the edges. The tires looked the same as these. Too bad as the Lotus is great! Just let the service folks put a sour taste in you.

[NMRJock]

My dealer told me to go beat the crap out of it and have a good time. And when I brought mine in with the vibration complaint they balanced all four tires for me without question. Maybe you need a new mechanic?

[paulhastings]

I certainly have very little confidence in this dealer after today's experience. I am certainly far from a mechanic but, I have driven sports cars and go-karts for many years. I know the reasoning they were trying to pass on to me is total BS. If they want to see what a flat spot looks like they can watch the replay of the last F1 race. Great on board footage for the unfortunate Kimi Raikkonen.

With so few Lotus cars and dealers we are limited with dealer options unless we are willing to drive a distance for service. Your dealer servicing your car without question is exactly how it should be. Not you drove the hell out of the car when that read out cannot possibly tell them anything more then I have used the full powerband as suggested by Lotus. My Porsche club friends would laugh if I showed them my tires and suggested I had driven the hell out of the car. They would tell me I was driving it like a stationwagon!

[ChrisB]

Originally Posted by paulhastings

Anybody have an excellent dealer for service they would like to recommend. I am in Southern California and the further south the better.

Newport European. I don't think there is a better tech than Don.

[APOGEE]

Paul, are you far from O.C. ........ having and driving a Elise should be fun !!!
All the best, Don

[Ground Loop]

Seriously, I wouldn't set foot in that dealership again, Paul. They're giving you a runaround because they don't want to fix the problem.. you can't make them run a better business, so you will have to go elsewhere.

The Elise is a track-bred car, and I believe the owner's manuals says as much with text about exploring the dynamic envelope. If they're waving around a few 7500 spurts as a reason to leave your wheel out of balance, that's just wrong.

Realistically, if other Lotus service centers are too far to travel to, I would just take then wheel off yourself, call up some racing buddies you trust, or your Porche mechanic, and get the wheel straightened out on your own dime. It's probably just inexpensive weights or bad mounting, but if it's something more (bent rim?), at least you will be armed with a second opinion. You'd have to eat the cost, but it's either that or a better service center.

And come back and post the conclusion, preferably with the dealership name -- reputation counts, and I want to avoid taking my car to such a place.

[paulhastings]

I am not too far from OC and I believe I have heard about Don in Newport. It would be a bit of a drive but, the road trip would likely be worth it to deal with a mechanic and dealership that knows what they are doing. The said I had 55 times between 5000-6500 or something in that range. Why is that even relevant? I followed the manual and I am quite certain I was much easier then most. I think I will just go to a shop on my own in the morning and see what happens. I will certainly post the results. They said it was too far off to balance.

[pinmagic]

I recently had a similar experience, as posted in another thread. The guy who powdercoated my wheels didn't get the balancing right, so he paid Criswell Lotus to do it for me. Criswell did a "Road Force" balancing. After they did it, the car still had a vibration in the wheel above about 75 or 80 mph. Their master tech (a former F1 mechanic) test drove with me, and pronounced it a separating belt in one of the front tires, so he told me to go to Yokohama for a replacement.

At the Yokohama dealer, the asst. mgr. told me the diagnosis was wrong -- he said that if a belt were separating, I'd feel it at all speeds, not just high speeds. He then took 60 or 90 minutes to carefully balance the 2 front wheels, repeatedly dismounting the tires and rotating them on the rims, to find the best spot for them, counterbalancing the wheel imperfections against the tire imperfections. That's what "Road Force" is supposed to do, but he claimed he could do it better by hand. And sure enough, he did. He got rid of most of the problem, to the point where it's barely noticeable.

In the medical profession, when a doctor doesn't want to deal with a patient, he "turfs" the patient to another specialty. I think that's what your dealer is doing to you!

[scottyb]

I had a similar experience. My front tire was vibrating. I had Valenti check my balance. They said the tire was off balance. I had 750 miles on the car. They made me pay for the balancing. I was a little pissed because I felt the car was probably delivered that way and should have been covered under warrantee.

[Lotus Fury]

Originally Posted by Ground Loop

Seriously, I wouldn't set foot in that dealership again, Paul. They're giving you a runaround because they don't want to fix the problem.. you can't make them run a better business, so you will have to go elsewhere.

DING! Paul - this is the best advice. When I had my BMW the dealership down the street was awesome. Then all the service people changed and then everything became my fault. I quit going because it was more of a hassle than it was worth.

There's no way you flat spotted the tires that bad either. With ABS it's damn near impossible to do it through hard braking. If the tires flat spotted due to sitting around then heat cycling should have fixed them back to nearly new. The Yoko's I had on the M would flat spot after 3-4 days and within 15 miles they were ok. Even after letting it sit for 2 months they would reform themselves after 20-30 minutes of driving.

You already know the service department is worthless so quit going there!

[hpman]

I wouldn't be too hard on the dealer. Recently on two accounts Tire Rack sent me new A048's that Discount Tire balanced repededly to no avail.

Tire rack on both occasions had the tires replaced with round tires in stead of potatoe shaped. Just not dealers fault or issue in my case anyway.

[The Stig]

Originally Posted by hpman

I wouldn't be too hard on the dealer.

Hey Hpman
didn't you work for a dealership???

Neil

[Chris D.]

[quote=pinmagic]Criswell did a "Road Force" balancing. After they did it, the car still had a vibration in the wheel above about 75 or 80 mph. [quote]

I have taken my car to Criswell and F.O.W. for balancing and I am still getting the same minor vibration above 80 mph. I give up!

[fitfan]

now that they are selling cars in the US, Lotus's next big hurdle will be the dealers.... some are awesome, some are fair, and some should be selling yugo's out of thier dad's garage - lets hope they (lotus) get them (the dealers) under control !

[hpman]

Originally Posted by paulhastings

The Elise is a wonderful car but, if you have to fight everytime you go to the dealer then one begins to wonder if it's worth it and if you should return to owning that reliable German sports car!

You mean like 996 with major RMS issues (amoung other issues) or the Boxster that blows engines every 30,000 or so miles.

[The Stig]

Originally Posted by hpman

You mean like 996 with major RMS issues (amoung other issues) or the Boxster that blows engines every 30,000 or so miles.

I think Paul is just frustrated and it isn't the car but the customer service and dishonesty of a certain dealership that is bothering him. IMO no matter what the car, reliable or not, expensive or not the customer service at the dealerships should be good. At least I won't put up with anything less.

The Dealership is face of the cars they sell, if the dealer's customer service is sub par the cars look bad, in this case Lotus.

Neil