neatpicking on the car!
I'm not going to the the glowing review about driving the car, I've already done that before and it hasn't changed, this is the most awesome machine south of 150K for sure! but dont get me wrong, I love this car and it is the most fun car I've ever had but I'm going to pick on a couple of stupid litlle minor insignificant things that are a nuisance as I see them and that I hope Lotus will fix in the future so you all can have a better car than mine.
First some constructive criticism to Dimmit! Picked up my car and it was detailed, I wish it hadn't been! I was going to ask Jeff not to bother with it but I decided not to. Jeff, please get on those detailing boys case! Nothing serious or terminal but it showed me right away that you got to be carefull not to leave scratches on the paint when waxing and to be careful with the black plastic parts, any smears of wax will show up! Also Jeff, please have them clean and detail inside the engine bay, It makes a huge difference as you look at that engine everytime you open the boot and you are going to open the boot a lot as there is hardly any storage space inside the car. Enough Dimmitt bashing
The soft top is great, much better than I expected, very easy and fast to put in and it gives plenty of head room once it is up, it also feels nice and tight when it is installed, a perfect example of great yet simple engineering. kudos to Lotus on that! Also if you are shy it is great because everyone as they go by they look at you but with the top up you can't look back at them because they are sooo high up there! .
The biscuit interior is also great, I loved the color, it matches well all dark colors and I'm so happy that it is what I got, It livens up the car a bit. kudos again!
Driving is impossible to not want to rev this baby up! I got on the cams once but overall I kept changing speeds and gears up to the 4500 RPMs recommended, just incredible what this little NA four banger can do!
Driving home the car for the first couple of hours is a lot like in the test drive, it feels nice and the suspension compliant and the seats very confortable, but after 4 to 5 hours you can forget about that! The engine/wind/radio noise with the top on or off doesn't seem loud at first but after 4-5 hours my ears were ringing and I had a touch of headache by the time I got home, sort of like when you leave a disco, same feeling minus the alcohol off course

. The suspension also felt harsher as the hours went on and that perfect driving position for the track also gets tiring in the long haul. I wish there was at least one more inch of travel in the seat, it would allow my 6'4" frame to fit better for the long haul. The car is not a GT so no real complaints about any of this, just a warning for those who wish to use the car a lot for long travels.
Now to some real neatpicking! I apologize in advance but 5 plus hours in the cockpit gives you a chance to notice lots of things... The rear view mirror is way too big! you can see the right head rest, your right ear plus a lot above and below the rear window, I'm going to look for a smaller mirror to replace it with, it will give me more viewing angles out the front windscreen without loosing any visibility off the back window. Lotus if you read this, check it out for youself and change it for 2006 if you can.
I'm also going to remove the drivers side sunshade also because it will give me an extra inch of visibility straight in front of me and because I'll never be able to use it, I'll probably save a couple of ounces by changing these two things, I think Chapman would approve! :bow:
The side view mirrors and the door just adjacent to the side mirrors have these black decals covering holes which were probably meant for some type of mechanical mirror adjustment (those of you who have a car know what i'm talking about). I'm all for ditching the mechanical adjustments and doing it by hand in a car this small but please someone find us some plastic or other plugs to cover those holes! If no one ever touched those stickers I bet they'll fall of in 6 months and if I let my 3 year old daughter in my car they'll be gone in 5 minutes so I need some plugs for those! pronto as she is going to be all over this car when she gets home, she is just going to love it and want to drive it up and down or street!
Another thing I didn't like much is that everytime you shut off the car the AC goes off. In FL one never drives with the AC off so I wish there was a way to switch the default setting to ON! I stoped once to pump gas and put the hard top on and drove for a half an hour after that in the heat because I didn't realize the AC was off! The AC also goes off if you turn the fan to 0 and after you turn back on you have to restart the AC again, no big deal really just something different than what I was used to.
The light controls are not bad and I like that the switches for all functions in the car ( AC, Lights, etc ) are all similar switches but, it seems funny to me that you can switch on the low beams and driving lights with one button but to shut them off you need to first shut off the low beam than the running light. It would also be nice to have the lights go off when you lock the car.
I also developed a clunck noise in the drivers seat, it sounds like it comes from the forward aft adjusting mechanism or it is because I'm too heavy, but it makes my noise when I shift around on the seat ( I was doing a lot of that after 5 hours!)
That is it for neatpicking for now, oh, almost forgot to re-emphasive what everyone has already been saying, we need some new L O T U S letters for the rear, those are just too cheesy!
I'll try to take some pictures tonight and welcome any and all comments