Questions concerning STANDING STARTS

[fishguy]

just had my 1K service done last week or so ago. they(lotus of scottsdale service manager) said wheel spins before break in completed WILL void the warranty. I chose not to do any aggressive driving until AFTER my 1k service.

[chip]

I have smelt the clutch too even when driving nice on the street. Anyone had one go out yet?

[QuickSilver]

I'm sure you will be fine. It's my understanding that, as mentioned above, they still can't read the '06 ECU's. Although a burnt out clutch may render an ECU dump unnecessary

[LehmanZ06]

what's a wheel spin----

inch of spin--please----

not smoking the tires or anything----just giving it a little gas to get it moving from a dead stop from time to time---

If the road is wet and the wheels spin a little---there goes your warrenty--
that's ridiculous---

I have never hurt any car I owned
4 vetts
2 Supras
2 WrX's
2 Sti's
1 Camaro
2 Mustangs

(although I did smash a hot wheels car with a hammer, and set it on fire with modeling glue when I was younger. Also assisted a friend in blowing his own mailbox apart with firecrackers about 28 years ago when I was 12)

[jim-clayton]

No one has gotten their warranted canceled.

Everyone claims (in print anyway) to have preformed a mild and proper break-in. Keeping resale value in mind.

I for one ran the crap out of my car from day one....It's just a car. Not even an expensive car.

Dave, run the wheels off. I promise not to send the video to the almighty
Lotus police.

[speedyK]

My supercharged Exige had just had a service at around 1,250 miles when I did numerous racing starts at over 5,000rpm. I have a sintered clutch though.

Video: http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...728407&pl=true

Did the same with my stock Lotus-built Opel speedster a couple of years ago. The next day on track, a clutch component failed which wa sreplaced under warranty as Opel felt it should not have failed...

Opel video:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...395335&pl=true

[LehmanZ06]

nice post Jim------thanks

I'll be watching you in SS
I might go back and fourth with Hector in ASP with the vette, but the more I think about it I might want to keep the Lotus all to myself first time on real tires---

the vette smoked the Elise at the PCA event, but I drove the vette better, and the tires on it were better-----

Now the course might favor the elise tomorrow---but I still don't have any idea how to drive it---totally stock, except A6's

maybe one day back to SS, but possibly not at ER yet----not fair if I get you on A6's. Would like to beat Hector in my ASP vette

Good Luck, and see you tomorrow-----
If I can swing it---would you like me to ride as a passenger on your first run to give you some feedback ?

Either way see you tomorrow--

Should be 5 runs of fun !

[Keeper]

If you bought the car at zero miles and used the throttle as an on/off switch running to redline every time until the 1000 miles data dump.

- What exactly could Lotus say about it?
- Does it clearly state anywhere that you can't do this?
- Aren't the engines cycled prior to delivery?
- Did they give you and ECU dump when you bought the car? No? Then, where's the baseline for warranty invalidation.
- Why does this sound so familiar?

Anyway, I say when you get the car you should ease into it, but if you wait 600 miles to bring it to red line, you're not breaking it in properly. The engine should see the entire RPM range, just increase the load incrementally and hold off on WOT and don't dwell on the high cam until 600 miles.

[scapamouche]

Last week, I got a warning from the dealer when they did a dump on my Elise (17500 miles, BTW) when I brought it in for unrelated warranty work

I was informed that I have 26 standing starts, and that only one other Elise they knew about had more... I launch at 4k without sidestepping, so take that for what it's worth.

I was also warned about the engine exceeding 8500rpm on several occasions and that it might affect the warranty... OK, sure, EXCEPT that I have not misshifted or abused the engine. I suspect that the rev limiter is a bit too soft, and allows the engine to rev well past the 8500 limit...

[MitchT]

I just had my 1 yr 7500 mile service with 5800 miles on the car , several autox and plenty of track time, No recent launches over 5000k, but I did do it before the 600 mile service once or twice and smelled a little clutch so that is not something I would do again. My first print out showed the two lauches.
From this service,in my service book was a print out showing 0-187kmh runs five of them, I think that equals to zero to 115.9 mph. (Track runs )The read out is strange it does not show time/correlations in a form I can understand, but it also has engine rpm data and duration. So I think PBMC has the tools to disect the ecu. New shifter, fluids , the car runs like a top. Got to love Lotus.

[Surferjer]

You want a warranty void? I've got one for you.

This is an extremely long post. It's a long story, but I want you to have all the facts, and this is extremely important subject matter. I suggest you all read it.


This all started about 2 months ago. There's a thread either under maintenance or engine/tranny the starts with "Gridding noise" (sic) which documents another Elise owner that had his tranny grinding when down-shifting from 3rd to 2nd. He described something that my car has done since I bought it, so I was curious how this would be fixed. Since my car was like from day one, I actually thought it was normal. I routinely let revs drop to 1500 before downshifting into 2nd or just skipped the maneuver altogether. It never occurred to me this was a defect.

In any case, this fellow Elisetalker wound up having to have his transmission replaced and he found out just recently. He went to South Bay Lotus, and noted that the mechanics there had to replace another Elise tranny too. The problem stemmed from a bad synchro that was inherent in the Toyota tranny, according to South Bay. Hmmmm. My car was already at Rothrock, so I asked them to look at the tranny once the Starshield was done. They did-bad synchro, they said. So they contacted Lotus USA, Mike Fischer (sp?), and he asked for a data dump. Now it gets ugly. I found out yesterday that, based on the data dump, Lotus was voiding the warranty on the tranny.

They did the data dump and noted the following problems: I had, in the almost 2 years, 22K history, 21 standing starts. Too many, according to Fisher. I had numerous high revs between 8700 and 8800 as documented previously. They found two revs just over 9K, too. I don't know how these two happened, because I sure don't remember missing any shifts downwards, and it could have been one of many drivers who co-drove events last year in the car. But there apparently were these two over-revs. However, Fisher said that any revs over 8500 would be a problem.

Let's take these point by point.

1) 21 standing starts in 22K miles? I've never dropped the clutch above 5K, ever, so these standing starts are probably in the 3K-5K range. No one has been able to define a standing start. Even the Rockroth techs didn't know. Apparently one standing start per 1000 miles is too many. B.S. One Pro Solo event and you'd be almost there!

2) Numerous high revs above 8500? Anybody going to the rev limiter will certainly have revs over 8500. On my new car, my top five are all between 8600 and 8700, for example. It's obviously the actual redline of the motor, not abuse. If Lotus wanted all revs below 8500, lower the limiter to get them there.

3) Two revs at 9100 and (I think he said) 9200. Okay, here I don't know what happened, but it certainly appears to be a mis-shift. I sure don't remember doing it, but there it is. And that's the reason I'm not screaming bloody murder on the warranty. Nevertheless, the tranny has ALWAYS had a synchro problem, an it was NOT caused by a high rev. But the firm ground I felt like I was standing on slipped away.

Am I still pissed off? Yes. So now I have three options: replace the tranny (7K total) and sell it, do not replace the tranny and sell it, or trade it in. I'm leaning towards option 3. I do not want to have a fellow etalker mad at me for not disclosing something; however, if I was keeping the car I'd never worry about the issue. Hell, I've driven it almost two years like that, no problem. I want to sleep at night, so I'm coming forward right away. And this is critical for all Elise owners to know, especially autoxers.

Flame suit on. Let me have it on the two revs. But even without those two revs they were still voiding my warranty on the tranny. Be warned: the "warranty" sounds like a fallacy on the powertrain unless you absolutely baby the car. Thank goodness it's a Toyota lump.

I have called Mike Fisher today, and I'll report back if I learn more. By the way-I'm not mad at Rothrock; they're doing what they're told, and one of them told me that he didn't think the ECU data was bad enough to reject a claim, FWIW.

[Baysailor]

Maybe we need two ECUs for these cars... one that we drive under and one we put on for services and warranty work.

I say this tongue-in-cheek of course, but I wonder what they would do... would think they could tell when its not the original ECU based on an electronic serial number or something. Of course someone could use the orginal ECU for just service/warranty work and one out of a wrecked Elise/Exige for driving and events.

Would something like this work? Other than the hastle factor.

[Surferjer]

LOL. Who knows. I never thought Lotus would act like Mitsubishi on tracking their cars. Or maybe they just don't want to replace expensive trannys and will find an excuse to do so. I'm hopeful that Mr. Fisher will narrow the "problem" to the two high revs, but I doubt it. Other owners beware.

I will continue to autox the new one, and I love both Elises. And of course I'll keep my new one for a long time (forever?). That won't change. But my next track car might have crossed flags on it...

[TedDBere]

Originally Posted by Surferjer

But my next track car might have crossed flags on it...

OMG

[Vantage]

Originally Posted by Surferjer

1) 21 standing starts in 22K miles? I've never dropped the clutch above 5K, ever, so these standing starts are probably in the 3K-5K range. No one has been able to define a standing start. Even the Rockroth techs didn't know. Apparently one standing start per 1000 miles is too many.[/COLOR]

At the Southbay Lotus event, a Lotus official defined the standing start. I don't feel comfortable in quoting him, as I don't remember the exact words. However, it was something to the effect of:
- dropping the clutch at 3k
- the car detects some level of wheel speed, but the car is not moving

My memory is very fuzy on this. Maybe others from the Southbay event can help? Serebo1 and possibly Patricko were there when we were told...

Originally Posted by Serebo1

Be careful. Unless I'm mistaken, a standing start is defined by the computer sensing clutch engagement over 3K without wheel rotation. Something like that. Am I off?

Originally Posted by Stan

I have heard conflicting comments about that standing start definition. One rumour has it that the computer also looks at the follow on, revs reached, to what ultimate MPH etc. One person who was worried about their launches had the computer spit out zero launches. Anyone know more?

[Vantage]

Originally Posted by Surferjer

But my next track car might have crossed flags on it...

I can't tell if this is a Corvette, Ferrari, or...?

[cixelsyd]

Seems like cracking the ECU and changing the data to erase standing starts and high RPMs would be a relatively simple thing to do ... didn't someone post in a turbo thread about a month ago that they had already got most of the work done on dumping the ECU code?

-=cixel

[bluejae]

do people even do standing starts under 3k?

[Keeper]

How does a standing start damage the 2nd gear synchro?

A tech could overrev your engine by that much and you wouldn't know anything was wrong when you picked it up, yet the warranty is voided?

Revs around 8500 should _not_ be a problem and I doubt a couple trips to 9k could have caused your problem either.

You have a bad synchro in a tranny that apparently has been known to have issues with the synchros. They should replace it.

And, if owners are going to monitored in this manner for warranty claims then we need to be informed exactly what will void the warranty.

[Surferjer]

Keeper, I agree. I'm not sure how to proceed, though. I'm irritated but not devastated. My wife said screw it-trade it in. But the void looks like a crappy thing to do. If I fried the engine it would make more sense to me. 2nd gear downshift synchro?

TED-you never know about what you'll do. Buying a Vette might be an angry kneejerk reaction. Or not.