Changes to the production Elise by VIN-DATE

[Chris D.]

Trust me; the removal of the antennae does not enhance reception. It has the worst reception of any car I've ever owned.

[cranium]

Originally Posted by cranium

Try this out. It is only a few questions right now to see if I can get the proper results and if it will work for our needs

Thanks...looking at the results it is easy to determine changes. I am making a more robust registry right now.

Here is a quick view of what we got:

VIN	TOUR	HARDTOP	SPORTS	SPORTSRIMS	LOCKLUG
30027	Yes	Yes	No			Yes
30154	No	No	Yes	Anodized	Yes
30518	Yes	Yes	Yes	Anodized	Yes
30580	Yes	Yes	No			Yes
30650	Yes	No	No			Yes
30817	Yes	No	Yes	Painted		Yes
31051	Yes	Yes	No			Yes
31333	No	Yes	Yes	Painted		No
31356	Yes	No	No			No
32286	Yes	No	No			No
32722	Yes	Yes	No			No

From that you can see it went anodized to painted somewhere between VIN 518 and 817. Lotus stopped the locking lug nut between 1051 and 1333. Looks like this will be really helpful. Post things you want to see in the registry and I'll put them in and set it up!

[cranium]

Here is the (non)Official Lotus Elise Registry

You'll have to re-do the survey if you did the short one. This one is MUCH longer.

Edit: I decided to make a new post:
http://www.elisetalk.com/forums/showthread.php?p=184749

Maybe that one can become sticky and I'll make a post once a week with results?

[adamant]

Originally Posted by cranium

From that you can see it went anodized to painted somewhere between VIN 518 and 817. Lotus stopped the locking lug nut between 1051 and 1333. Looks like this will be really helpful. Post things you want to see in the registry and I'll put them in and set it up!

Well i think it gets more complicated than this too. An earlier car than mine was delivered to the first (grrr) customer at SHI (SLC) and the LSS wheels on THAT car were AFR more silver than mine. Neither sets were painted. The very early cars had some other kind of finish? It was a very noticable difference too. This was the time that cars were delayed due to the wheels IIRC.

[NMRJock]

Are there comparison pictures of the two shift knobs out there somewhere? I have the set screw. How much larger is this knob than the former stock knob? Was there a thread about this that I missed?

[Joe McCarthy]

I think some of you may be expecting a little more organization out of Lotus than they deserve. They commonly make running changes on their cars as well as going from one vendor to another, and install the parts as they see fit.

-snip-

[Dro]

Mr. McCarthy appears again.

[roadrunner]

Originally Posted by Joe McCarthy

I think some of you may be expecting a little more organization out of Lotus than they deserve.

[SNIP self-serving free advertisement]...

Have fun gathering data, it'll make for interesting reading.
Joe

Just how off-topic does a post have to be before the mods delete it?

[doma]

Here's a mod that I don't see mentioned...

The wiring for the 'dole' light. Early VIN cars have the cable come from the drivers side then run all the way under the light and connect on the passenger side. Later VIN cars don't have this - the cable is much shorter and connects to the left side of the light.
I've got car #0038 and that dang cable keeps hanging down across my rear view. I've seen it on one other low vin car but I don't know when it changed over.


anyway-

[67veloce]

Sorry guys, if this is anything like the old and not so old Alfas you frequently got what was on the shelf that day. I generally doubt that there was ever much rhyme or reason to the fit and finish of some of these mid-priced sports cars.

I had 1986 GTV-6 3.0L and it had the exact same door handles (internal) as my 1974 Berlina Sedan. You can still rummage through old Alfas and find lots of dissimilar parts, Fiat parts and in some cases Ferrari parts. A number of these cars were built at Pinifarinin and I doubt they had a word for "inventory". I suspect Lotus is MUCH better but I think I have better things to do than try to illicit variations based on the phase of the Moon and my vin # which I suspect is as out of sequence as the trim parts. I would still go to the door mfg. date and do my best from there if i were going to do it at all.

Good Luck.

I do however think that a well documented list of damaged cars by vin # is a valuble page to have. Didn't I hear that someone paid something over $28K for Snuffy's (#I) remains? Although very stiff, aluminum cannot be easily repaired and suffers badly from metal fatigue. It would be a shame to see someone with moderate knowledge really get taken by a good glass man and better salesperson.

As for my car, I really don't think I care too much if I have horizontal finish scratches on the gas cap, old or new antenna mountings. As long as it drives and performs to my expectations I'm pretty happy. Having owned used cars all my life so I could drive smaller, lighter machines stuff like this falls into the real estate category of "character" (or was that charm?)

[iRod]

That's not the point of the registry. It's just a nice reference to have.

[APOGEE]

Last week I did a P.D.I. on a Elise that had S.S. hardware on the plastic cam
cover trim and the intake cover. I will post the Vin# Fri. The fuel door had the new spun finish.
Don.

[Surferjer]

Suffy went for 18K. VIN 218 or 208 I think.

[Nicolas]

who can beleive to Mr Joe McCarthy again?

[Ground Loop]

Good eyes, Don! I'm curious to see the new fuel door finish, and if they've found a better way to retain the rubber bumper nub.


Someone posted an image of the A/C Fix service bulletin, including VIN number ranges for Fed Elises. That would be something useful to bring to this thread, if we want to track the changes.

[Terminus]

Originally Posted by Randy Chase

Rear Diffuser design changed. Added dimples for diffuser bolts to cross member.

At the All British Field Meet in Bellevue, Wa this weekend I noticed a diffuser difference, don't know if it is the same one listed above.

My chassis (600's) and a chassis in the 300's, had 5 bolts across the back of the diffuser (1, 3 ,1). The newer chassis' had 9 (2,5,2).

[Joecooool]

Originally Posted by cranium

Lotus stopped the locking lug nut between 1051 and 1333. Looks like this will be really helpful. Post things you want to see in the registry and I'll put them in and set it up!

I've got car number 1547 and I have locking lugnuts on my sports wheels.

[sandsmuseum]

There is a Lotus Elise Registry at

http://www.sandsmuseum.com/cars/elise/registry/

It attempts to document the running changes Lotus has been making to the Elise and the Exige. You can see various changes made to the cars related to serial number and build date.

There are some missing pictures that show the differences. For example, I do not have a picture of the fuel filler door with the circular texture. I also do not have a picture of the flush wheel caps on the newer cars. Please send me a picture of you have something that is not illustrated or if you notice a change that I do not have listed.

I notice there is one 2006 Elise listed. Thanks! I will be interested to see what errors the program has in listing the 2006 cars as time goes by.

Michael

(I will be doing some clean up of the database this weekend. Some people do not have their build dates entered. The display uses build date to sort and when it is entered as zero, the entries appear at the beginning. Your build date can be found on the insde door jamb, driver's side.)

[JnC]

Originally Posted by sandsmuseum

There is a Lotus Elise Registry ....

Is there a way to make the registry where it can be easily downloaded as a txt or xls document? That way folks could do sorts to their heart's content.

[Ron Avery]

I have some photos of the wheels that show the flush center cap.
Ron