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2,344 Posts
Ok... got my elise last monday! BRG with LSS. Neil and Andrew were great to work with, I still recommend Autostrada!
I picked up the car, cruised around the hill country roads there in Austin, including driving the devil's backbone and across Mansfield dam. Met Lumn8r when he picked up his car wednesday morning, and also met Dave Simkins of Lotus USA.
The car gets lots of attention, some good, some bad.
I got my service done in Dallas, at 800 miles on the car, and Thursday at 2pm, I started out towards Memphis, TN. I slept that night somewhere near knoxville and drove the tail of the dragon friday morning.
the dragon... WOW. Ran it several times... easy to pass most bikes, and keeps up with all but the fastest sport bike riders. That road is awesome. I also sped rapidly down the hill away from the dragon towards robbinsville with an S2000 in hot pursuit. I didn't know the road, so I kept it at about 8/10ths, and when I got to the TVA sign at the bottom of the road, we pulled off and chatted for a bit. His brakes were smoking. The Elise was running cool and happy at 186 degrees.
That afternoon I drove a pretty good chunk of the Blue ridge parkway, until it got too dark and foggy. After that I got back out of there and back on the highway. The parkway had a chunk that was closed, so I had to go back down through Asheville again, and take 26 up to 81. Ended up sleeping in Staunton, VA. Went to a friends wedding Saturday afternoon in DC, and now I'm back down in VA beach. 2818 miles on the car already.
I've got some niggly issues that need to be taken care of... some kind of really loud rattle at certain rpms. It may be the heat shield or the manifold heat sheild, but whatever it is, it's really obnoxious. I've also got something that sounds to me like a throwout bearing, but Dave Simkins thinks it's just gear noise, so I defer to expert judgement.
The passenger side headlamp has dropped down a tiny bit behind the fiberglass, leaving the rubber trim bit loose. Any suggestions on how to fix? I'm going to take a look at it closer tonight and see what I can do. I will probably have to remove the wheel arch liner and get to the housing to do anything, which is ok, since the headlights are WAY off. I feel like I'm overdriving the lights at 35 mph. It was not a safe feeling on the highway at night, and demanded a lot of concentration.
The seats are perfect for short commutes, but they really start to hurt my hips after about 30-45 minutes. I need a (very slightly) wider seat.
If you're considering not getting the ultrashield, I caution you... I have rock chips already. several of them. I didn't want to get the ultrashield because I plan to put stripes on the car first, but no one even installed the standard stick on pieces for the rear fenders. I'm going to have to touch up a number of places at the same time as I have the stripes done. Not happy with that... the paint is very easy to chip. I dropped a wallet size spare key for a mini (small plastic key) on the spoiler by accident, and it scratched a pinhole through to the fiberglass. That's ridiculous. I've also heard that some ultrashield installs have pulled paint when people tried to remove a piece of film. How about a decent primer coat, Lotus? WTF?!
Overall, however, I'm extremely happy with the car, and it was definitely worth the wait. I'll upload pics when I figure out how to get them to a reasonable size.
And if you haven't driven the dragon... Go. Can't say that enough. It's beyond description.
Cade
PS... sorry for the change of travel plans if anyone was hoping to meet me in GA. I was forced to modify plans due to time constraints.
I picked up the car, cruised around the hill country roads there in Austin, including driving the devil's backbone and across Mansfield dam. Met Lumn8r when he picked up his car wednesday morning, and also met Dave Simkins of Lotus USA.
The car gets lots of attention, some good, some bad.
I got my service done in Dallas, at 800 miles on the car, and Thursday at 2pm, I started out towards Memphis, TN. I slept that night somewhere near knoxville and drove the tail of the dragon friday morning.
the dragon... WOW. Ran it several times... easy to pass most bikes, and keeps up with all but the fastest sport bike riders. That road is awesome. I also sped rapidly down the hill away from the dragon towards robbinsville with an S2000 in hot pursuit. I didn't know the road, so I kept it at about 8/10ths, and when I got to the TVA sign at the bottom of the road, we pulled off and chatted for a bit. His brakes were smoking. The Elise was running cool and happy at 186 degrees.
That afternoon I drove a pretty good chunk of the Blue ridge parkway, until it got too dark and foggy. After that I got back out of there and back on the highway. The parkway had a chunk that was closed, so I had to go back down through Asheville again, and take 26 up to 81. Ended up sleeping in Staunton, VA. Went to a friends wedding Saturday afternoon in DC, and now I'm back down in VA beach. 2818 miles on the car already.
I've got some niggly issues that need to be taken care of... some kind of really loud rattle at certain rpms. It may be the heat shield or the manifold heat sheild, but whatever it is, it's really obnoxious. I've also got something that sounds to me like a throwout bearing, but Dave Simkins thinks it's just gear noise, so I defer to expert judgement.
The passenger side headlamp has dropped down a tiny bit behind the fiberglass, leaving the rubber trim bit loose. Any suggestions on how to fix? I'm going to take a look at it closer tonight and see what I can do. I will probably have to remove the wheel arch liner and get to the housing to do anything, which is ok, since the headlights are WAY off. I feel like I'm overdriving the lights at 35 mph. It was not a safe feeling on the highway at night, and demanded a lot of concentration.
The seats are perfect for short commutes, but they really start to hurt my hips after about 30-45 minutes. I need a (very slightly) wider seat.
If you're considering not getting the ultrashield, I caution you... I have rock chips already. several of them. I didn't want to get the ultrashield because I plan to put stripes on the car first, but no one even installed the standard stick on pieces for the rear fenders. I'm going to have to touch up a number of places at the same time as I have the stripes done. Not happy with that... the paint is very easy to chip. I dropped a wallet size spare key for a mini (small plastic key) on the spoiler by accident, and it scratched a pinhole through to the fiberglass. That's ridiculous. I've also heard that some ultrashield installs have pulled paint when people tried to remove a piece of film. How about a decent primer coat, Lotus? WTF?!
Overall, however, I'm extremely happy with the car, and it was definitely worth the wait. I'll upload pics when I figure out how to get them to a reasonable size.
And if you haven't driven the dragon... Go. Can't say that enough. It's beyond description.
Cade
PS... sorry for the change of travel plans if anyone was hoping to meet me in GA. I was forced to modify plans due to time constraints.
