so just how dodgy is the yota R engine?
Discussion
Part way through the process of buying an R, and I come across a load of posts about over revving, the engine letting go, and £9k bills. Difficult to know whether this is a 1 in 1000 event, only happens to cars that are thrashed or what.
The car concerned is second hand so I can never really know its history for certain. Not bothered about track days / long corners and oil starvation that way - reasonably confident that isnt an issue. However, the 6 speed gearbox is easy to miss a slot in (done it myself) so I've no way of knowing if that has happened and cause over revving. If this does happen, does the engine fail straight away of 000s of miles later? At what revs are you in danger - 8k or the 10k that one dealer said the factory saw as the danger point?
Is there anyone out there who can give an authoritative and balanced view of whats involved?
The car concerned is second hand so I can never really know its history for certain. Not bothered about track days / long corners and oil starvation that way - reasonably confident that isnt an issue. However, the 6 speed gearbox is easy to miss a slot in (done it myself) so I've no way of knowing if that has happened and cause over revving. If this does happen, does the engine fail straight away of 000s of miles later? At what revs are you in danger - 8k or the 10k that one dealer said the factory saw as the danger point?
Is there anyone out there who can give an authoritative and balanced view of whats involved?
the only people that could tell you overall just how reliable that engine is in an Elise, is Lotus themselves, as only they will have the statistics....all you can go on is what you find on forums.
The problem with forums is you get an obscure view on things, as not every owner comes on them ...no doubt there are tens of thousands of happy owners that dont, generally it tends to be people looking for answers to problems who come on them to start with, so you get a skewed view of the product.
Its the same with anything, cars, hifi, computer equipment, bikes, anything really...you will always find people with problems!
Overall, Id say the Yota engine is a good as it gets for a 'sportscar' engine these days as far as reliablity goes....theres certainly no epidemic of failures and they do tend to be rare when you hear of them.
Theres loads of owners on www.seloc.org too if you want to do more research
The problem with forums is you get an obscure view on things, as not every owner comes on them ...no doubt there are tens of thousands of happy owners that dont, generally it tends to be people looking for answers to problems who come on them to start with, so you get a skewed view of the product.
Its the same with anything, cars, hifi, computer equipment, bikes, anything really...you will always find people with problems!
Overall, Id say the Yota engine is a good as it gets for a 'sportscar' engine these days as far as reliablity goes....theres certainly no epidemic of failures and they do tend to be rare when you hear of them.
Theres loads of owners on www.seloc.org too if you want to do more research
The engine is fine
The only issues are:
1. high revvy nature of the engine tends to result in some people overrevving them by accidently downshifting too early... as with any engine this causes large amounts of damage
2. oil starvation when cornering hard. This can happen to any engine but can be fixed by fitting an accusump or baffled sump. Even Honda K20's have blown from oil starvation at the Spa circuit. If you can pull high G's for long enough then eventually your engine will get damaged if it doesn't have the precautions installed.
If it really does worry you about buying 2nd hand then ask the dealer to give you an ECU print off. It will show how many times it was buzzed.
As above the internet is really really bad for starting false rumours like this. When ever you read something 'bad' like that on a forum you have to take it with a pinch of salt because 1. you don't know if the guy is really telling the truth (i.e. someone on seloc reckons he has killed 2ZZ-GE's in a straight line from oil starve...) and 2. for every bad opinion there is probably 1,000's that are positive.
The only issues are:
1. high revvy nature of the engine tends to result in some people overrevving them by accidently downshifting too early... as with any engine this causes large amounts of damage
2. oil starvation when cornering hard. This can happen to any engine but can be fixed by fitting an accusump or baffled sump. Even Honda K20's have blown from oil starvation at the Spa circuit. If you can pull high G's for long enough then eventually your engine will get damaged if it doesn't have the precautions installed.
If it really does worry you about buying 2nd hand then ask the dealer to give you an ECU print off. It will show how many times it was buzzed.
As above the internet is really really bad for starting false rumours like this. When ever you read something 'bad' like that on a forum you have to take it with a pinch of salt because 1. you don't know if the guy is really telling the truth (i.e. someone on seloc reckons he has killed 2ZZ-GE's in a straight line from oil starve...) and 2. for every bad opinion there is probably 1,000's that are positive.
Edited by NathanE on Sunday 1st June 18:28
- 2 is only an issue if you're tracking it hard, I think those that have suffered from cavitation have been running slicks, or less than road legal tyres on them and being quite experienced drivers (I don't think I could pull enough G even on slicks to cause it, I'd run out of talent before then).
LivinLaVidaLotus said:
#2 is only an issue if you're tracking it hard, I think those that have suffered from cavitation have been running slicks, or less than road legal tyres on them and being quite experienced drivers (I don't think I could pull enough G even on slicks to cause it, I'd run out of talent before then).
no so, Yota with std sump is not good in hard corners, perfectly possible on std tyrers ont he road...
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