V6 exige lunging and stalling
Discussion
Ive been chasing a problem with an exige I purchased from new from murray lotus in Edinburgh on 1st may 2014.
The car would lunge and stall, difficult to change gear and the last resort was when the only way I could get the car to stop at traffic lights was to turn the car off before I crossed into oncoming traffic.
The clutch has been changed for the revised version but the car continues to lunge and stall.
Lotus and Murrays denied the fault but I had the car taken away for inspection and road testing. The conclusions speak for themselves.
I have met a lot of restrictions on the forums from people however this is the icing on the cake. Has anyone else suffered from this on their exige?
some of the conclusions below......
92.It was the opinion of the examiner from the findings of this report that the vehicle’s
transmission system is defective.
93.Intermittent concerns are clearly apparent to the vehicle which was recorded during the
purpose of this inspection. The examiner could not determine if the defects were in
relation to the gearbox assembly, clutch assembly or a combination of both.
94.It was the opinion of the examiner and important to point out that the vehicle received
significant extended road testing covering over 300 miles over a period of 24 days.
95.This said, the examiner was of the opinion that the intermittent concerns / defects noted
during the road testing seemed to have no particular pattern of failure and would be very
difficult for a franchised dealer to pick up during a normal daily road test.
96.The examiner was slightly concerned that the ACE report only mentioned the one concern
of the transmission rattle and made no comment of the more major issue of the vehicle
lunging when the clutch pedal was depressed. The examiner is also concerned that ACE
did not perform a road test to consider the transmission fault.
97.To conclude, it was the opinion of the examiner from the findings of this report that the
vehicle’s transmission system is clearly defective, not of suitable quality or fit for purpose
in its present operating conditions. It was the opinion of the examiner that the vehicle
should not be driven on the public highway as the driver / operator cannot guarantee
clutch control or gear selection when required and further driving of the vehicle with the
transmission system in this condition could cause further damage.
The car would lunge and stall, difficult to change gear and the last resort was when the only way I could get the car to stop at traffic lights was to turn the car off before I crossed into oncoming traffic.
The clutch has been changed for the revised version but the car continues to lunge and stall.
Lotus and Murrays denied the fault but I had the car taken away for inspection and road testing. The conclusions speak for themselves.
I have met a lot of restrictions on the forums from people however this is the icing on the cake. Has anyone else suffered from this on their exige?
some of the conclusions below......
92.It was the opinion of the examiner from the findings of this report that the vehicle’s
transmission system is defective.
93.Intermittent concerns are clearly apparent to the vehicle which was recorded during the
purpose of this inspection. The examiner could not determine if the defects were in
relation to the gearbox assembly, clutch assembly or a combination of both.
94.It was the opinion of the examiner and important to point out that the vehicle received
significant extended road testing covering over 300 miles over a period of 24 days.
95.This said, the examiner was of the opinion that the intermittent concerns / defects noted
during the road testing seemed to have no particular pattern of failure and would be very
difficult for a franchised dealer to pick up during a normal daily road test.
96.The examiner was slightly concerned that the ACE report only mentioned the one concern
of the transmission rattle and made no comment of the more major issue of the vehicle
lunging when the clutch pedal was depressed. The examiner is also concerned that ACE
did not perform a road test to consider the transmission fault.
97.To conclude, it was the opinion of the examiner from the findings of this report that the
vehicle’s transmission system is clearly defective, not of suitable quality or fit for purpose
in its present operating conditions. It was the opinion of the examiner that the vehicle
should not be driven on the public highway as the driver / operator cannot guarantee
clutch control or gear selection when required and further driving of the vehicle with the
transmission system in this condition could cause further damage.
Lunging when clutch is depressed and the car still has drive, Not ideal when pulling up to a junction.
There is also difficulty selecting any gear on occasions.
The report is 25 pages long, it's only a few conclusive points ive given as an example.
The car has been with murray lotus since October, lotus sent a field engineer to inspect it (which took 10 weeks, another story) and the car was deemed as fit after a revised clutch was installed.
Ace are another inspection company sent by black horse to investigate the cars faults. They never drove the car so their inspection was a waste of time.
I have been offered a refund for the car, lotus are investigating further since the report came out.
There are other cars out there with this same issue as I've spoke to the owners.
The problems I had on the forums were pretty ridiculous to be fair, loyal customers to murrays etc.
There is also difficulty selecting any gear on occasions.
The report is 25 pages long, it's only a few conclusive points ive given as an example.
The car has been with murray lotus since October, lotus sent a field engineer to inspect it (which took 10 weeks, another story) and the car was deemed as fit after a revised clutch was installed.
Ace are another inspection company sent by black horse to investigate the cars faults. They never drove the car so their inspection was a waste of time.
I have been offered a refund for the car, lotus are investigating further since the report came out.
There are other cars out there with this same issue as I've spoke to the owners.
The problems I had on the forums were pretty ridiculous to be fair, loyal customers to murrays etc.
Arun_D said:
Indeed. Stoddie has been in contact with me about his car's problems since things started going wrong after my first V6's clutch change.
I wonder what it is about the clutch replacement procedure that caused this 'lunging' with the clutch pedal fully depressed in my vehicle. To those that don't know, my clutch friction plate completely failed which but this strange issue was only present after the new clutch was fitted. Otherwise the clutch was perfect in operation before the failure, as you'd expect since I had only bought it 2weeks before with only 1800miles on the clock!. Stoddie can confirm but I believe his car also received the clutch change due to a noisy release bearing (as it happened my faulty car made the same noise but not to the same degree, both before and after the clutch change). My new car is silent in this respect.
As far as I know, the dealership has not been able to rectify the fault on my former vehicle. Surely it must be hydraulic related, though I did make sure the system was bled and re-bled by the dealership, but still the fault remained, though it took 3 days of solid driving to for it to manifest again before I finally threw in the towel and asked for my money back.
It felt like many months at the time, but in reality the time period was just over 2months from initial clutch failure to exchanging the vehicle. With the report Stoddie has, I can't see why he shouldn't be able to get a similar outcome.
cheers Arun,I wonder what it is about the clutch replacement procedure that caused this 'lunging' with the clutch pedal fully depressed in my vehicle. To those that don't know, my clutch friction plate completely failed which but this strange issue was only present after the new clutch was fitted. Otherwise the clutch was perfect in operation before the failure, as you'd expect since I had only bought it 2weeks before with only 1800miles on the clock!. Stoddie can confirm but I believe his car also received the clutch change due to a noisy release bearing (as it happened my faulty car made the same noise but not to the same degree, both before and after the clutch change). My new car is silent in this respect.
As far as I know, the dealership has not been able to rectify the fault on my former vehicle. Surely it must be hydraulic related, though I did make sure the system was bled and re-bled by the dealership, but still the fault remained, though it took 3 days of solid driving to for it to manifest again before I finally threw in the towel and asked for my money back.
It felt like many months at the time, but in reality the time period was just over 2months from initial clutch failure to exchanging the vehicle. With the report Stoddie has, I can't see why he shouldn't be able to get a similar outcome.
Edited by Arun_D on Tuesday 17th March 16:40
my problem was basically the same, the car had a clutch change but the lunging was still present. I know of 4 cars now that have transmission faults, Aruns old one, my old one, one for sale at Bentley motherwell and one other. So there is a definite trend of gearbox issues.
I see mention to the Toyota gearbox above, its only the housing that's remained the same, the internals have been modified by lotus so it is their design fault.
I have today received confirmation of a full refund, as ive had autoexpress support on this who have been pushing lotus for a refund they are publishing something in next weeks auto express about it.
I hope lotus do something about this before someone ends up been thrown in front of something at lights or a junction and gets hurt.
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