S3 Lotus Elise - Nobody can fix it!

[CJ1]

Hi all,

I have a 2010 Elise S3. I’ve owned it for coming up to a year. I parked it up December 20th in a hangar and came back 3 weeks later to a check engine light, traction control light and a fuel gauge that doesn’t read.

Car drives completely fine, basically the car starts up with a full tank reading and will drop to empty in 5 minutes. My Carista gives the following code (see pic)


I’ve taken it to two very reputable garages where I live and had to beg them to even look at it. Neither can diagnose the problem, apparently they have quite a unique scanner for the OBD system?

So I’m after a Lotus specialist within an hour or so of Goodwood!

Thanks

Edited by CJ1 on Wednesday 28th February 18:00

[Vsix and Vtec]

Has anyone changed any parts yet? If the cost was sensible, I'd be inclined to throw a new fuel tank level sensor on it just to rule it out (and take a good look at the loom while I was there).

Also, whats the general health of the battery? Many cars often throw a light show when thr battery is weak. Failing that, in my time working at Lotus, we did sometimes have to replace the instrument clusters, most memorable was one chap who's 2006 Exige would randomly just switch the whole cluster off, leaving the car running but the inside looking like it was dead. Not a fun one. I seem to recall we replaced it twice because the first replacement was faulty out of the box.

Edited by Vsix and Vtec on Wednesday 28th February 18:04

[_Bandit_]

As above, try changing the battery first.
It normally clears 95% of Lotus issues
When leaving it parked up for anything more than a couple of weeks, it’ll need to be left on a trickle charger.

[BertBert]

Surely B&C is a place to have on your list for this kind of thing?

[fridaypassion]

Yeah battery would be the first one to try 3 weeks in winter I'm actually surprised it started if not on a charger.

I'm not sure if the fuel level runs through the canbus system on an S3 but if it does I would say it's an ECU issue caused by the power in the battery. You could try dropping the power off the battery and charge it with the battery not connected then reconnect and I would bet that clears it.

As above instrument cluster fails are normally the display going funny or on Black dash cars they just die until you power cycle them but you don't get an eml.

[Master Of Puppets]

The Hangar didn't happen to have rats in it?

[otolith]

I was thinking faulty instrument cluster, but the fault logged suggests otherwise.

Mine keeps randomly dying - no speed or revs and empty fuel tank. Suspect it's a connection at the back which needs resoldering, but I'm trying to man-maths myself into a digital dash upgrade.

[fridaypassion]

On the older pre black dash cars these symptoms are when there is a dry joint on the clocks PCB never seen this on the black dash cars and you dont get the EML with the dry joint issue

[Stephanie Plum]

Back on Track in Guildford or Classic Modern Sports in Heathfield.

[CJ1]

Stephanie Plum said:

Back on Track in Guildford or Classic Modern Sports in Heathfield.

Booked into Back on Track, thanks!