Nooo!

[onedsla]

A terrible day - after avoiding about 5 separate accidents (not my fault) driving home from work, I take a friend for a 'spin' in my 1000 mile old S2 111S and find out the hard way (2 small trees and a wall) that the amazing grip in the dry isn't the same in the wet.

the road was damp - I changed gear from 1st to second at about 30mph and as soon as I get back on the gas in 2nd, the rear end spins - tried to correct but no good - mount a kerb, demolish 2 baby trees and bounce off (and wreck) a brick wall.

Don't believe how stupid I am, especially after reading about similar instances and promising myself I wouldn't drive at 100% until I had some proper training. It's only the 2nd day since the 1000 mile service - the first in bad weather so I guess it's down to inexperience on a car like this.

So where's this leading - I'm not going to patronise anybody by saying don't drive fast in the wet, but just wondering where on earth I should go to get it repaired.

The front bumper, bonnet and driver's side skirt will need replacing, as does the driver's side wing mirror and windoe glass - does anybody have any idea how much this will cost as I'm hoping that I won't need to use insurance - I figure my cash limit is £5k - £6k, otherwise I may have to claim. My NCB isn't protected so I'd lose 2 years (worth about £1k a year, plus I'd have a claim)

Help, please!!

[fergusd]

Unlucky . . .

You really need to get it looked at by someone who knows how to assess Elise damage.

Don't want to depress you (I'm sure you'll do that to yourself) but these cars are very easy to damage to the point of no repair and determining this right now is what you need to do, an Elise specialist is the only person I'd trust to do that.

Get it back to the dealer for assessment.

Fd

[onedsla]

Thanks - guess it's back to the dealer tomorrow - at least I know my tracker works - forgot about that until they just phoned me lol!

I'm hoping there's no mechanical damage (starts up and moves fine) so just body panels. and a wall that thankfully had a lot of give, or my elise may be in a much worse state.

Could anyone give me a ball-park figure on a price to repair body panel damage of this type? guess it's the wrong forum to ask about brickies!

[fergusd]

Your principal problem is chassis damage, if it's damaged at all they will have to replace it, I would also insist on this myself, Lotus recommend they are not repaired.

There really is no way to estimate damage until you can veryfy exactly what is damaged.

I'd imagine that your budget may be under threat based on what you say, but let the dealer have a look see . . .

Fd

>> Edited by fergusd on Saturday 1st February 04:12

[bogie]

Sorry to hear about your accident

try sending some pics to Sinclaires if you want another quote - www.lotusrepairs.com

they are based in NE London, but are highly recommended, and are of course Lotus approved

[Mr. O]

Don't know if this is any help, but last year I had 2 smashes to my S1 elise meaning that everything apart from the driver's door needed replacing. The 2nd crash was totally my fault and I couldn't afford to lose my NCB (what little I have).

Anyway, it cost me around 3K for a complete new front clam shell fitted sprayed and all.

The company who did it were Panelwise, but I had to book it in through my dealer.

[DanH]

Yeah sinclaires are good if you are in their area, although not lotus approved at the moment, they do have an officially trained engineer.

Could cost you anything though, if its the chassis 10k+ is easy.

---

Anyway also worth contacting these guys for some airfield practise once its fixed :

www.1stlotus.com

Not being smug as I'd just prang mine then, but he's done a world of good for my car control, and its stuff beyond the scope of IAM training (although hes an IAM+Rospa gold trainer).

[loserkid]

www.tvrbliss.co.uk/ewelme_lotus/

Thats who SGT Lotus use. Highly reccomended my friends Elise had rear clam, passenger door and frontclam done there - insurance though so I don't know the price

[bogie]

Dan

IIRC Sinclaires ARE a Lotus approved bodyshop, but not Lotus approved for servicing i.e. Lotus Dealer status. They do warranty work for Lotus etc

[onedsla]

Thanks for your help - It's back at Christopher Neil's at the moment (I'm in North West) for an estimate, and I've reported an 'information only' to my insurance (so it's on record already should I claim)

Just keeping my fingures crossed that there's no chassis damage - Insurance guy estimated that premium would be up 30% on this year if I claimed:

Without claim
I'll be 23, 5 years NCB, 1, 3 point conviction (SP50) in last 5 years, no claims in last 5 years

with claim:
Still 23 w/ 1 conviction but 2 years NCB and a claim on record.

this year I was 22, 4 years NCB an SP50 almost 5 years ago (still had to tell them) and SP50 2 years ago. Never claimed before = £1450 with Tesco.

[onedsla]

Just got some bad news that there's slight chassis damage and a part costing £4k (some part of chassis) may need to be replaced - any idea at what point is this a write-off, given that it's a month-old car?

[Arno]

onedsla said:a part costing £4k (some part of chassis) may need to be replaced

£4k pretty much is the material price for an entire new chassis.

Repairing the Elise chassis is in almost all cases not possible.

Bye, Arno.

[jfrf]

i have had a similar experience in the wet but luckily got away with it.
Just extreme fish tailing.

The thing is that I wasnt even driving that fast.
it was just a combination of wet road, bend, low gear.
Unless youre in a straight line keep your foot off the gas in the wet.
Try the 1st lotus course. It will give you a lot of confidence back. I even found that it was possible to drive quick in the wet.

I would have thought that anything over 3 grand would be an insurace job

[glugcom]

Bad luck mate, it could've been me on a couple of occasions. Does anyone know of better tyres than the Bridgestones in the wet?
glenn

[loserkid]

glugcom said: Bad luck mate, it could've been me on a couple of occasions. Does anyone know of better tyres than the Bridgestones in the wet?
glenn

The Yokohama Advans are a dealer fit only (or bookatyre.com) and are supposed to be a lot better in the wet. I've got the standard Pirelli P-Zeros still on mine though and no major problems.

[Arno]

loserkid said: The Yokohama Advans are a dealer fit only (or bookatyre.com) and are supposed to be a lot better in the wet.

Advans are only for the S1, not for the S2 (wrong wheel sizes..)

Bye, Arno.

[onedsla]

Further to this I've just had the news that there is chassis damage - Christopher Neil are recommending a new tub costing £3500 alone so the claim is looking at £10k - 11 plus a £1k wall to put right.

To add insult to injury my 0.001 litre corsa curtousy car has turned up which, although only 17kk miles and 1 year old appears to be completely f*c*ed - pulling to the left, clutch going etc. - this is really taking the piss when I'm paying £1400 a year insurance for it - and it's likely to be 6 weeks to wait for my Lotus back.

I know I've only got myself to blame (and maybe Bridgestone for the inability to make tyres that grip in the wet!) but should I really be in this position given I'm paying so much for fully comp insurance???

[Stevef]

Sorry to hear about your off.
If its any consilation, rechassis jobs are often better than the factory build, my S1 was.
The Bridgestones on my S2 are the grippiest wet tyres I've experienced on an elise, you should of tried an S1 with P Zeros.

[fergusd]

onedsla said:
I know I've only got myself to blame (and maybe Bridgestone for the inability to make tyres that grip in the wet!) but should I really be in this position given I'm paying so much for fully comp insurance???

Your insurance will cover the costs I assume, so you're getting what you're paying for.

You've just cost the insurance company 12 grand, by crashing a car, so, you're a higher risk, so your premium will increase to reflect that.

What is so wrong about that ?

Incidentally regardless of whether you claim off your insurance or not it's likely that any insurance company will have specified that you tell them about accidents, whether claimed or not, so you're screwed anyway.

Oh, and if you don't tell them, that's fraud, and your insurance may be void.

So, as you know, crashing a car is a costly affair, best avoided, and the costs just keep coming.



Fd