Experience at Park Place LTD

[Interceptor]

Well I ended up going to Park Place LTD yesterday with my friend Dru in his 430whp custom 350Z (he says he's met RB and Bleu before). Well after Kiawapilot had talked me into looking at used elises, I agreed at first to humor him. We actually planned on going today but something came up for today so I got Dru to take me after work yesterday. So after the test drive with Tim and hours of waiting, today hopefully I'll be able to drive one home tonight. I will say Ryan and Tim were the nicest people there, the other sales personnel and management seemed to have that "what the hell do you want?" look on their face.
No promises though that I'll get the car as if they can't get me a good deal. So disregard my other strange thread for now, as my wife and I sat down and talked this over. This pretty much sums up the conversation with her starting off. "So if you get the Sky, you're gonna want to eventually get a Lotus?" "Correct." "Ok, if you get the Lotus, would you still want to get a Sky?" "No." "Get the Lotus." "Ok."

As far as stereo upgrade in the touring pack, what does that consist of? Bigger amp and a diffrent in dash cd player?

[Bleu Omdurman]

brother, i am so pumper right now. Absolutely the right decision. Tell Ryan that Trevor said hello. I have also bought from Tim. There are two, Tim Mills is the one I am referring to. I hope that is who you are talking about?

As for the stereo, I'm not sure if the difference is noticable. They all suck. Good stereo's I am sure, but the car is just not intended for a radio. There is an upgrade in the 2006 that auto adjusts the volume for your speed. the 2005 has the function in the stereo but the car is not setup to use it at all.

Options that I think you should think about:
2005: Touring pack is an extra 20 pounds, but worth it in my opinion just for the electric windows. LSS/sport pack, is 20lbs lighter and worth every penny. You can have both as my 2005 did.

2006: Sports pack for sure. I am pretty sure that you could have a non-touring car and still have electric windows. I think they were standard starting in 2006.

Find a car that you like out of the area and get that price and a delivery cost. That is a good starting point to negotiate with Park Place. They are sales people and value referrals and repeat business, so working that into the conversation in a positive way can loosen the discussion on price.

Bog, the Lotus mechanic is a good guy, IMO. He has brought me back in the shop to show me things on teh car, even though fixing them was free (warranty). His labor rate is close to Colin Cantrells. Colin is an independent shop that many in the area use. his labor rate is just slighty lower than PPL but not much.

let me know via email if you'd like to chat on the phone. I am happy to call you from Zurich to help in anyway I can.

Best,

trevor

[Interceptor]

Both cars I'm lookin at are 2005's. One is fully loaded with a hard top, they are asking for little over 38K after taxes if they can't get me 36k out the door then I'm going for the less equipped one that has only the sports pack and standard options. I really like the fully loaded one but we'll see what I end up with.

[Bleu Omdurman]

it will be great either way. I encourage you to get exactly what you want. I always figured if I coulr fly to CA, pick up a car, and drive it back for less than PPL, then they would negotiate to that point.

keep us posted when the time comes.

Personally I love the hard top. My wife loved the soft top.

[6_speed]

Best of luck with your search

As you know, the "Lotus For Sale" thread is overflowing with low-$30k's

Your wife is the smart one (in the family) after all

[Interceptor]

Originally Posted by 6_speed

Best of luck with your search

As you know, the "Lotus For Sale" thread is overflowing with low-$30k's

Your wife is the smart one (in the family) after all

Maybe, but she was the one that sold me on the SKY in the first place where as I wanted to get an Elise in the first place. go figure.

[Interceptor]

Just heard back from Parks Place, I'm approved, unfortunately took them to long to approve it so no picky uppy tonight. Not tomarrow ether since my wife is busy, and friday is halloween.. weekend got national guard.. uhg.

If I get out early enough on friday I might be able to pick it up with help of one of my buddies. They are fedexing the paperwork to me so my wife can sign and I can just drop it off and go home with the car.



Yep thats the stage 2 exhaust.

[Abe]

Interceptor, congratulations and when you see Ryan, tell him Abe said hi

[Noizemaker]

Congrats, man! I think I saw that one there a few days ago when I went in with a co-worker who wanted to grab the Esprit they had.

...they were a little upset I didn't get mine from them. heh. Still treated me awesome. I'll be going back.

[Interceptor]

Originally Posted by Noizemaker

Congrats, man! I think I saw that one there a few days ago when I went in with a co-worker who wanted to grab the Esprit they had.

...they were a little upset I didn't get mine from them. heh. Still treated me awesome. I'll be going back.

Esprits are nice cars.. which one did he get?

Abe, I'll tell Ryan you said hi

I'm still disappointed about the fugly keys, but I didn't buy the car for the keys now did I..

[Noizemaker]

Nothin'. It was gone when he got there.

[Noen]

I'm a big fan of Park Place. The only reason some of the staff looks a little "lost" is the insane amount of foot traffic they get from people just wanting to look at/take pictures of the cars.

I love the hands-off approach, and have referred a couple of friends for cars there, it's nice to just be able to walk around and look, then ask for help when you ACTUALLY need it.

[6_speed]

Congratulations!

Nice color and nicely optioned too.

[Kaliuzhkin]

Is Raphael still there?

[speedneed]

good choice

[Interceptor]

Originally Posted by Kaliuzhkin

Is Raphael still there?

No idea.

[Bleu Omdurman]

Wooooo Whoooo!!!

Looks great man.

[Interceptor]

Can't believe how cheep the insurance is... alot cheeper then my evo was.

[Cali]

Very nice! I couldn't do without the hardtop...

[thomasde]

Originally Posted by Interceptor

As far as stereo upgrade in the touring pack, what does that consist of? Bigger amp and a diffrent in dash cd player?

I have an '05 with the touring pack, so the options may be different for yours. However, the stereo that was in it was just plain bad. Terrible. Nothing sounds good in it. It does play CDs, but who still uses CDs nowadays? There is no iPod hookup. It was an upgrade to cheezy.

So: I very quickly replaced the stereo, new deck, new amps, new sub.

JL Audio Stealthbox fits in the passenger footwell, that will give you some deep bass. The passenger footwell is pretty deep, but with the stealthbox, taller passengers will lose footspace. Fortunately, I prefer short women

There are also boxes available that fit behind the driver's seat. I'm not sure how it's anchored though -- the rear bulkhead is not very strong. There is no space under the seats or behind the lower part of the seat.

I had some JVC amps installed in the trunk. I don't recommend those amps though -- I want to replace them with JL Audio HD series amps. They take up less space and run cooler. This is an important factor given that the amps are in a small enclosed unventilated space that is heated by the engine.

The Polk Audio speakers my Elise came with aren't the greatest -- they are really weak on the low end, so there is a bit of a gap at the mid-bass register -- too high for the subwoofer and too low for the main speakers. I plan to purchase new speakers for it eventually.

In short -- don't consider the stereo in your decision to purchase the touring pack. If you want to listen to music, plan to rip&replace the whole set no matter what package you buy. The car is noisy, even with the touring pack, so you will need something with the power to defeat the ambient noise if you want to enjoy the music.