[Genjuro]

Even though it may not matter, I want to make it clear what position I am taking on this.

I believe that anyone that has currently placed an order with Lotus, should have the MSRP of 39,985 honored.

That's it..nothing more, nothing less.

Any more orders from this point on, should be at the rate that Lotus decides it needs to profit/survive/etc...

Now the facts:

I've had money down on this car since Feb. of 2002. That's 31 months!!

I placed my configured order in the first batch and included an additional sum of money.

I speced out my car, with options, having the understanding that the price would not change.

I am the next person to receive a car from Criswell. My car could be built right now, but no one knows where it is.



If you agree with me, please say so, if you don't please say so as well. I'm willing to change or solidify my opinions through open and intelligent conversation.....

 

[Johnny B]

Even though it may not matter, I want to make it clear what position I am taking on this.

I believe that anyone that has currently placed an order with Lotus, should have the MSRP of 39,985 honored.

That's it..nothing more, nothing less.

Any more orders from this point on, should be at the rate that Lotus decides it needs to profit/survive/etc...

Now the facts:

I've had money down on this car since Feb. of 2002. That's 31 months!!

I placed my configured order in the first batch and included an additional sum of money.

I speced out my car, with options, having the understanding that the price would not change.

I am the next person to receive a car from Criswell. My car could be built right now, but no one knows where it is.



If you agree with me, please say so, if you don't please say so as well. I'm willing to change or solidify my opinions through open and intelligent conversation.....

I agree 100% with you.

Hopefully Lotus will do the right thing for those of us that have already spec'ed out our cars and placed our orders.

 

[agent.5]

i agreed with all except the following statement:


"I believe that anyone that has currently placed an order with Lotus, should have the MSRP of 39,985 honored."


Some of us are on the wait list prior to the announcement of the current MRSP. The reason that we have not ordered is because Lotus delayed the car for 6 months. Maybe a more equitable cutoff point is all waitlisters placed prior Jan 04 be honored the current price.

 

[BrianK]

If you agree with me, please say so, if you don't please say so as well. I'm willing to change or solidify my opinions through open and intelligent conversation.....

I agree. As was posted in another thread, the decision making process may have changed with regards to options if the new price had been known at the time of order.

 

[Johnny B]

If Lotus insists on the MSRP increase for those of us that have already ordered, then include the Starshield at no additional charge.

It's either that, or honor the prices at the time we ordered our cars.










LOTUS, ARE YOU LISTENING?



















(well...are you?)

 

[MikeAR303]

My car is already built, and I agree 100%.

$945 will not stop me from buying my Elise... but it will stop me from buying any upgrades, accessories, and future vehicles from Lotus on principle alone.

This would be different had I known about the increase when I placed my order or at least before my car had been built.

 

[zvezdah1]

But you still have the price subject to change without notice disclaimer on the brochures.

Now if your dealer contracted with a specific price to you without that disclaimer it'd seem the DEALER would be obligated to sell the car to you at that price. But you don't have a contract with Lotus stating what price you would pay.
Chris

 

[MattG]

Genjuro - I agree.

I think Lotus made a mistake by taking orders before they were ready to build them. If they hadn't, it'd have been easier to phase in an MSRP increase.

 

[MikeAR303]

But you still have the price subject to change without notice disclaimer on the brochures.

See... the thing about that is, I don't care. Them taking advantage of their customers by using some disclaimer is no less ridiculous than one of their customers attempting to file a class action suit against them for "allowing extra cars to be sold".

The disclaimer doesn't make it any less shady for them to trap those of us whose cars have already been built into paying an extra $1k to get them. I wouldn't do it to my clients, and I don't know of any respectable company that would do it to theirs.

Financial hits caused by bad business decisions are to be absorbed by the companies/people responsible for those decisions... not by their customers.

 

[Sownman]

Disagree...

I don't like the raise, but I have two orders that specify MSRP at time of delivery. Thats the way the world works. Until you sign and are handed the keys you own nothing. If you don't want to go through with the purchase and the dealer refuses a refund of deposit then I know you'd win that in small claims court.

Steve

 

[Vantage]

Agree with Genjuro that orders actually submitted to Lotus should have had original price honored. However, that would mean that for people who have not had their order submitted, that they would probably pay more than $1k above the original price. The way Lotus did it seemed to strike a balance to make the best out of a bad situation. It could have been worse.

Don't agree with Agent 5. Those who have not yet placed their orders, even if they got on a waiting list, can spec their cars in the fashion they feel. People who have submitted their orders cannot change them if they wanted to. What about people who got on the list when the price was supposed to be $38.5k? By this train of logic, they should get that price as well.

Willing to live with this, but I think the people that have it worst are those who have a car in the country, but have not yet taken delivery! Those who have not yet specified their order are still 4-6 months away.

 

[LarryB]

I agree. Hope Lotus would “honor” the price for orders already taken. It would go a long way to help build some good will towards a restless customer base. Not that they need it. As Matt mention with pre-orders they are still looking at around 15-20 cars per dealer x 40 to deliver. 600-800 cars, $600- 800k, not exactly chump change.

 

[NMRJock]

But you still have the price subject to change without notice disclaimer on the brochures.

Now if your dealer contracted with a specific price to you without that disclaimer it'd seem the DEALER would be obligated to sell the car to you at that price. But you don't have a contract with Lotus stating what price you would pay.
Chris

So you'd have no problem with having ordered your car a year or two ago and tickled pink to be picking it up any day and finding out that Lotus had decided that they needed to charge $1000 more for it.
Alright. What if they decided that they wanted $2500 more? $5000? $10,000 more? How would you feel about your $5,000 non-refundable deposit when your $40k car suddenly became a $50k car?

 

[Vantage]

As Matt mention with pre-orders they are still looking at around 15-20 cars per dealer x 40 to deliver. 600-800 cars, $600- 800k, not exactly chump change.

Hi Larry,
I think you make a good point here that I alluded to in my previous post. If we take a pessimistic estimate, then they leave $500k on the table that they might attempt to recover in the next batch of orders. At that point, the next customers could have seen a $1500-2000 increase which is what a lot of us expected.

But we shouldn't defend Lotus too much now, they are big boys, and should have anticipated some of this uproar. Too early to tell whether it will leave a sour taste for months to come or not.

 

[Vangman]

zvezdah1

Enough with this "Price subject to change." If you're so OK with it, please send you check to Michael's Elise fund, C/O Preperation H. PM me for my complete address and correct spelling of my surname. The bottom line here is that I'm not happy in the least way with this! Those of us who've had desposits for close to and oveer a year should be grandfathered. With everything else that's gone on here (delayed cars, misinformation, no information, etc) the leaast they could do for good cutomer service is grandfather those who have ordered the cars thru 9/1/04.

 

[CAErven]

I agree that the MSRP should be held IF your car was built, ready for shipment and invoiced to the dealer BEFORE midnight tonight. Otherwise, it's an MSRP increase that I expected - actually less than it could have been.

I DO NOT consider my deposit with the dealer a build order to Lotus, which it is in fact NOT.

I've had a nonrefundable $2500 deposit in with MAG for just over a year now. The only price I was GUARANTEED in writing was MSRP at the time my car was invoiced by Lotus to the dealership, presumably after my car was built and ready to be shipped. I was fully cognizant of the fact that the MSRP would very likely increase one or more times (I figured several times) before I got the car. This is no suprise and I'm ready for another increase if that's what it takes.

This is the IPO of a VERY EXCLUSIVE, VERY DESIRABLE car in America. I'll take my bumps and bruises (but not a complete ass reaming) to get this car.

 

[shinoo]

Re: Re: My official position, like it matters...

I agree. As was posted in another thread, the decision making process may have changed with regards to options if the new price had been known at the time of order.

Ditto.

 

[huggy bear]

Even though it may not matter, I want to make it clear what position I am taking on this.

I believe that anyone that has currently placed an order with Lotus, should have the MSRP of 39,985 honored.

That's it..nothing more, nothing less.

Any more orders from this point on, should be at the rate that Lotus decides it needs to profit/survive/etc...

Now the facts:

I've had money down on this car since Feb. of 2002. That's 31 months!!

I placed my configured order in the first batch and included an additional sum of money.

I speced out my car, with options, having the understanding that the price would not change.

I am the next person to receive a car from Criswell. My car could be built right now, but no one knows where it is.



If you agree with me, please say so, if you don't please say so as well. I'm willing to change or solidify my opinions through open and intelligent conversation.....

I Agree!:clap:

 

[xxxotic]

I agree too!

Lets see, they deleted leather and foglites and raised the price by about $2000, made paint colors except red or yelllow an extra cost option, and now raise the price by another $1000. Granted we are getting air bags, oil coolers and a better alarm system than Europe, but I am still pissed about the increase especially when my car should have been built and delivered to me by now, and some dealerships havent even gotten their cars yet!

My car was scheduled for build in August, so guess it wont be invoiced until next month so I'm screwed. Maybe I'm lucky and its on the ship, but who the hell knows. I was also told that Lotus was not necessarily making cars in the same order that the dealers submitted them in so this may be unfair to others also.

Let Lotus make low cost mid-model year changes to distinguish the cars, like deleting the rearfins on the back like on the Exige, adding stripes, foglites,or a mesh type Exige grill, and a stage II exhaust and raise the price and no one would complain since they were getting a "newer" version. But to tell people that are a few weeks or months away from getting there cars that the price is going up when Lotus already had paid for the parts in inventory and knews its cost to produce and ship the car when your order was placed is wrong. I know one guy whos car is scheduled for delivery to the dealer tommorrow (9/1) It will be interesting to see what happens.

When is the the Mulrooney sticker that is legally required to be placed on cars showing the sticker price, options, MPG, etc applied to the cars? When they are shipped from England or after they arrive and go thru customs, or before they are put on the transporters? Is it legal to change it after the cars have already been produced, but not delivered?.

 

[MattG]

Let Lotus make low cost mid-model year changes to distinguish the cars, like deleting the rearfins on the back like on the Exige, adding stripes, foglites,or a mesh type Exige grill, and a stage II exhaust and raise the price and no one would complain since they were getting a "newer" version.

Agreed...producing 'special editions' is an excellent way for a company to boost profitability, and it's one that I'm certain Lotus will adopt in the US once Elise deliveries and production gets smoothed out. What I'm hearing other people saying is that they're losing money on the base model Elise, though. They can't change that as you suggest, 'cause then we'd all be complaining that we're being forced to buy the new model instead.

When is the the Mulrooney sticker that is legally required to be placed on cars showing the sticker price, options, MPG, etc applied to the cars? When they are shipped from England or after they arrive and go thru customs, or before they are put on the transporters? Is it legal to change it after the cars have already been produced, but not delivered?.

I can't speak with absolute certainty, but I'm pretty sure that's applied at port. Reason being, I recall seeing the Starshield on one of those stickers before, and that's an option that I believe you can add to your car after it's left the factory, since it's port applied. Can't do that if the stickers aren't added in the US.