Buying a R400 or R500 - where is best to look?
Discussion
rubystone said:
will_ said:
Yet which were still worth quoting in the Evo article? Which was presumably not made up and was researched, using the club and the manufacturer? I wonder where they got that information from?
You see, there you go again "presumably". I gave you a clue when I mentioned Mark's name..... will_ said:
Presumably you have written to Evo to display your disgust that they are pedalling lies about your car?
rubystone said:
Why? They state that the recommendation is that these cars have a refresh every 3,000 track miles. That's a hell of a lot of track miles and thus not an unreasonable statement. As I said earlier, perceived wisdom is that 1 track mile equals 10 road miles which extrapolates to 30,000 road miles...or do you not accept that perceived wisdom figure, Will?
As to perceived wisdom, is that nothing more than hearsay either? How can I or you accept something which is so blatently unprovable?
will_ said:
This appears to be going round in circles so let me repeat myself. Whether or not it is true, the R500 has a reputation for having engine issues which any buyer would beware of, especially now that a supposedly reputable buying guide is available. I would be surpised if a buyer was not at least considering the costs of a refresh if one had not been done recently on a car they were looking to buy.
rubystone said:
The problem is, you are perpetuating something based on hearsay, not personal experience, and remarks like "surprised" are evident that you tar everyone with the same brush as yourself.
So, again to be clear, even after the Evo buying guide are you saying that evidence of engine refreshes are not something that buyers look for? rubystone said:
To me, you sound like someone who regrets not buying an R500 and is trying to justify your purchase of a lesser spec car to yourself via this forum.
That's a very crass comment which is wholly incorrect. My car does everything that I require of it and, as I said earlier, it was bought with consideration of all the models available for my budget. For the reasons outlined above it was a well considered choice and I certainly don't crave an R500. Certainly no regrets. For sure, an R400 would not be enough for some people, but it is perfect for me.To me you sound like someone desperately trying to dispel a potential issue with a model you own and thereby attempt to maintain the residuals on your car. Let's not continue to make personal assumptions about eachother and stick to the cars, eh?
rubystone said:
I've just given you accurate figures for the residuals on R500s - these cars continue to sell for strong money given their rarity and the recognition of their being the peak of the K Series Caterham era. There's absolutely nothing wrong with your R400 whatsoever, but an R500 it is not....as you'd find out if you ever get to drive an R500.
I did drive one, but I couldn't justify it. Had I wanted one I would have got one I can assure you!Will. What's your problem here? Evo state that the R500 needs a refresh every 3,000 track miles. I'm agreeing with them. I haven't stated anywhere that the R400 is more or less fragile than the R500,have I? Nor have I sought to deny that the R500 did have issues when it was first released. All I am trying to do is to balance things up with facts, gained from my own personal experiences and those of the R500 owners that I know through the L7 Club and beyond.
You seem to have accumulated all your knowledge from written material and none from speaking to owners of these cars. Or perhaps I am wrong....whilst I don't recognise your moniker from Blatchat, I assume you are a member of L7CGB and attend local meetings and indeed that you may have posted on Blatchat to gain access to the collective wisdom that exists there covering all models of the Caterham range.
Having said that, I had a good root through Blatchat and couldn't see any obvious threads on the merits of R400 versus R500 and I don't think you're Stuart Butler, who was debating the merits of one versus the other not that long ago.
Whose R500 did you drive, out of interest?
You seem to have accumulated all your knowledge from written material and none from speaking to owners of these cars. Or perhaps I am wrong....whilst I don't recognise your moniker from Blatchat, I assume you are a member of L7CGB and attend local meetings and indeed that you may have posted on Blatchat to gain access to the collective wisdom that exists there covering all models of the Caterham range.
Having said that, I had a good root through Blatchat and couldn't see any obvious threads on the merits of R400 versus R500 and I don't think you're Stuart Butler, who was debating the merits of one versus the other not that long ago.
Whose R500 did you drive, out of interest?
"I think the R400 is worth the premium over the R300, it is so much more of a kick in the back. Bang for buck I'd rather have a Superlight than an R300 (and for less money). The R500 was too much for me and the reliability/maintainance was an issue that put me off. I think the R400 is more than enough for the road, without the problems of the R500."
Here's a quote from Will - note the "too much" - too much power or cost Will?
Here's a quote from Will - note the "too much" - too much power or cost Will?
rubystone said:
Will. What's your problem here? Evo state that the R500 needs a refresh every 3,000 track miles. I'm agreeing with them. I haven't stated anywhere that the R400 is more or less fragile than the R500,have I? Nor have I sought to deny that the R500 did have issues when it was first released. All I am trying to do is to balance things up with facts, gained from my own personal experiences and those of the R500 owners that I know through the L7 Club and beyond.
You seem to have accumulated all your knowledge from written material and none from speaking to owners of these cars. Or perhaps I am wrong....whilst I don't recognise your moniker from Blatchat, I assume you are a member of L7CGB and attend local meetings and indeed that you may have posted on Blatchat to gain access to the collective wisdom that exists there covering all models of the Caterham range.
Having said that, I had a good root through Blatchat and couldn't see any obvious threads on the merits of R400 versus R500 and I don't think you're Stuart Butler, who was debating the merits of one versus the other not that long ago.
Whose R500 did you drive, out of interest?
We seem to have got our knickers in a twist here. I can honestly say that there is no "problem" as such, but where I made what I still believe to be a valid point - that the R500 potentially requires more expenditure in maintenance than an R400, and that therefore better residuals can sometimes be offset by this - I was faced with a sarcastic and patronising reply from you. You have then gone on to make some crass assumptions, which are based on nothing. Once again you're off the cars and trying to score personal points, which says a lot more about you than me.You seem to have accumulated all your knowledge from written material and none from speaking to owners of these cars. Or perhaps I am wrong....whilst I don't recognise your moniker from Blatchat, I assume you are a member of L7CGB and attend local meetings and indeed that you may have posted on Blatchat to gain access to the collective wisdom that exists there covering all models of the Caterham range.
Having said that, I had a good root through Blatchat and couldn't see any obvious threads on the merits of R400 versus R500 and I don't think you're Stuart Butler, who was debating the merits of one versus the other not that long ago.
Whose R500 did you drive, out of interest?
Certainly I have got information from written sources - that is where information from most buyers will come from, especially those not in the club. I can't claim therefore to know "from personal experience" but I would hope that Evo have got it right (and if they haven't, tell them), and the distinction between the R500 being singled out for special 'refreshes' backs up the point that I made.
rubystone said:
"I think the R400 is worth the premium over the R300, it is so much more of a kick in the back. Bang for buck I'd rather have a Superlight than an R300 (and for less money). The R500 was too much for me and the reliability/maintainance was an issue that put me off. I think the R400 is more than enough for the road, without the problems of the R500."
Here's a quote from Will - note the "too much" - too much power or cost Will?
If you read the quote, I answer that question. That's another poor shot. I'm not going to get into a bragging match with you, suffice to say (as I repeat myself again), had I wanted an R500 I would have bought one as it was within budget.Here's a quote from Will - note the "too much" - too much power or cost Will?
will_ said:
I still believe to be a valid point - that the R500 potentially requires more expenditure in maintenance than an R400, and that therefore better residuals can sometimes be offset by this
There you go..."potentially" and "sometimes" 
I also saw a posting from you about the club and not joining it....if you had joined it and asked for advice on the R500, you would have received the benefit of "real-life" experiences rather than relying on rehashed rhetoric designed to (poorly) fill the pages of an (ailing) magazine.
rubystone said:
will_ said:
I still believe to be a valid point - that the R500 potentially requires more expenditure in maintenance than an R400, and that therefore better residuals can sometimes be offset by this
There you go..."potentially" and "sometimes" I also saw a posting from you about the club and not joining it....if you had joined it and asked for advice on the R500, you would have received the benefit of "real-life" experiences rather than relying on rehashed rhetoric designed to (poorly) fill the pages of an (ailing) magazine.
I considered joining the club, but if you are indicative of the attitude of their membership I'm quite glad that I didn't.
Now lets hope for good weather for a weekend blat....
I think as Ruby has pointed out, many of the initial issues that were identified with the 1.8k in the R500 state of tune have now been rectified by the majority of owners. Just because an engine has a high specific output hp/l, does not mean it is fragile per se. As long as the water jacket is allowed to come up to temp and the oil is allowed to warm through thoroughly, then things should stay rosy for a long time.
I *believe* (although stand to be corrected by those more knowledgable) some of the 'fragility' issues came from the exceptionally high rev limit on some cars that were regularly buzzed round to the 9k hard cut. On almost any engine (with the exception of the VTEC units) that is exceptionally high, regardless of what steel internals / valve train is fitted. I believe that by lowering the hard cut by 400 rpm, this considerably improves the rebuild intervals on the engine.
The R400 unit *only* goes round to 8200rpm, which is a lot lower in dynamic terms.
I don't think the R500 in itself needs more frequent refreshes, more has the potential to need more frequent refreshes depending upon how it's been treated/driven.
Also, so what if the R500 *does* require more attention than the R400? It's part of owning such a specialist car. Most 'range topping' cars require more attention than their siblings within the hierarchy, even if the performance differential may be small to the majority of drivers. Several Porsche models versus their GT3/RS counterparts spring to mind here.
PS Evo is not the holy grail of fact. True, they do research their articles (to an extent), but they are not engineers in the true sense of the word, and would not consult either Minister or Dave Andrews who both seem to have considerable hands on experience of tuning the k series engine.
PPS now that half of the evo staff have defected, I would expect some of the quality to *perhaps* downgrade as they attempt to maintain quantity. I may be cancelling my subscription soon...
I *believe* (although stand to be corrected by those more knowledgable) some of the 'fragility' issues came from the exceptionally high rev limit on some cars that were regularly buzzed round to the 9k hard cut. On almost any engine (with the exception of the VTEC units) that is exceptionally high, regardless of what steel internals / valve train is fitted. I believe that by lowering the hard cut by 400 rpm, this considerably improves the rebuild intervals on the engine.
The R400 unit *only* goes round to 8200rpm, which is a lot lower in dynamic terms.
I don't think the R500 in itself needs more frequent refreshes, more has the potential to need more frequent refreshes depending upon how it's been treated/driven.
Also, so what if the R500 *does* require more attention than the R400? It's part of owning such a specialist car. Most 'range topping' cars require more attention than their siblings within the hierarchy, even if the performance differential may be small to the majority of drivers. Several Porsche models versus their GT3/RS counterparts spring to mind here.
PS Evo is not the holy grail of fact. True, they do research their articles (to an extent), but they are not engineers in the true sense of the word, and would not consult either Minister or Dave Andrews who both seem to have considerable hands on experience of tuning the k series engine.
PPS now that half of the evo staff have defected, I would expect some of the quality to *perhaps* downgrade as they attempt to maintain quantity. I may be cancelling my subscription soon...
As has been pointed out earlier, I have had one of these since 2000, and have used it a lot, mainly on track, where it has racked up most of its 12,000 miles. I was only saying to someone the other day that most of the fuss about R500 engines seems to have disappeared! In the early days, there was a lot of fear about the fragility of R500's, some of which was well founded, some was not, but now, those 'in the know' have little worry with these cars.
The not well founded part was to do with fear over the state of tune of the engine. I have to admit that I was scared of the engine at first, and terrified of every noise it made. Part of this was down to the fact that in the beginning, a new engine was £12k. As time has gone by, the new cost of an engine has fallen, but much more importantly there are loads of people with a good understanding of the engine, and parts are now plentiful. As a result, engines are much cheaper - for example I have all the bits needed to build a new engine in my garage that cost a total of under £2.5k
The well founded part was based on the fact that the first few cars had teething troubles. These came from three key issues. First was an attempt to use cheap big end bearings. These proved inadequate and after the first few cars were built they were upgraded to race items (and Caterham to their credit upgraded all the earlier cars FOC). Second, the original rev limit was 9,200 RPM and they discovered that some harmonics destroyed the cranks, so they cut the limit to 8,600 (which is where max power is anyway). Finally, they were finding that the cooling was inadequate and they upgraded the cooling with triple pass radiators.
With the teething troubles sorted the cars now seem to be bullet proof, but all very fast Caterhams need to be maintained. The people I go on track with, like Alex Wong and Roger Swift have very fast Vauxhalls, and their maintenance needs are very similar to the R500. In fact, of the 'regular' Lotus 7 Club people with fast cars, the R500's are among the cheapest to run and most reliable of the cars used on track. As others have said, if used only on the road, the engines will last a very long time - it is likely that the rest of the car will fall apart first.
I have never regretted getting an R500 instead of an R400, because when I had an SLR (the predecessor of the R400), I was always aware that I didn't have 'the best'. The R500 has better equipment and components than the lesser Caterhams (like magnesium castings instead of aluminium, and carbon instead of GRP), makes a much nicer sound and goes faster (though it does take quite a good driver to make any real difference on track). And over the 8 years, despite an expensive problem (resulting from me refusing to reduce the rev limit - I thought I would just be 'careful'...) and a wheel failure, the total maintenance costs have been about £8,000, which makes this the cheapest Caterham I have ever run. If anyone tells you they drive a fast Seven on circuits frequently and have spent less than £1000 per year, then suspect that their wife must be in ear shot!
Of course, the point has been well made that you may not know how the car has been used and I would certainly advise anyone looking at one of these cars to get one that is known. There are not many around and most will have some history known to the owners club, which is worth a lot in terms of avoiding unpleasant surprises.
The not well founded part was to do with fear over the state of tune of the engine. I have to admit that I was scared of the engine at first, and terrified of every noise it made. Part of this was down to the fact that in the beginning, a new engine was £12k. As time has gone by, the new cost of an engine has fallen, but much more importantly there are loads of people with a good understanding of the engine, and parts are now plentiful. As a result, engines are much cheaper - for example I have all the bits needed to build a new engine in my garage that cost a total of under £2.5k
The well founded part was based on the fact that the first few cars had teething troubles. These came from three key issues. First was an attempt to use cheap big end bearings. These proved inadequate and after the first few cars were built they were upgraded to race items (and Caterham to their credit upgraded all the earlier cars FOC). Second, the original rev limit was 9,200 RPM and they discovered that some harmonics destroyed the cranks, so they cut the limit to 8,600 (which is where max power is anyway). Finally, they were finding that the cooling was inadequate and they upgraded the cooling with triple pass radiators.
With the teething troubles sorted the cars now seem to be bullet proof, but all very fast Caterhams need to be maintained. The people I go on track with, like Alex Wong and Roger Swift have very fast Vauxhalls, and their maintenance needs are very similar to the R500. In fact, of the 'regular' Lotus 7 Club people with fast cars, the R500's are among the cheapest to run and most reliable of the cars used on track. As others have said, if used only on the road, the engines will last a very long time - it is likely that the rest of the car will fall apart first.
I have never regretted getting an R500 instead of an R400, because when I had an SLR (the predecessor of the R400), I was always aware that I didn't have 'the best'. The R500 has better equipment and components than the lesser Caterhams (like magnesium castings instead of aluminium, and carbon instead of GRP), makes a much nicer sound and goes faster (though it does take quite a good driver to make any real difference on track). And over the 8 years, despite an expensive problem (resulting from me refusing to reduce the rev limit - I thought I would just be 'careful'...) and a wheel failure, the total maintenance costs have been about £8,000, which makes this the cheapest Caterham I have ever run. If anyone tells you they drive a fast Seven on circuits frequently and have spent less than £1000 per year, then suspect that their wife must be in ear shot!
Of course, the point has been well made that you may not know how the car has been used and I would certainly advise anyone looking at one of these cars to get one that is known. There are not many around and most will have some history known to the owners club, which is worth a lot in terms of avoiding unpleasant surprises.
Now what was the question!
Best places to look for a car are the usual ones like www.blatchat.com, pistonheads or even autotrader but as Caterham themselves would say, there are (relatively) very few of these cars ever produced and consequently, there is never much of a selection for sale at any one time. I think there were only a couple of hundred K series R400's made and only around a hundred R500's ever made too.
The other good source of information is to ask area reps as they sometimes have knowledge of cars that are up for sale or about to be advertised if the owner is moving on or upgrading.
T
Best places to look for a car are the usual ones like www.blatchat.com, pistonheads or even autotrader but as Caterham themselves would say, there are (relatively) very few of these cars ever produced and consequently, there is never much of a selection for sale at any one time. I think there were only a couple of hundred K series R400's made and only around a hundred R500's ever made too.
The other good source of information is to ask area reps as they sometimes have knowledge of cars that are up for sale or about to be advertised if the owner is moving on or upgrading.
T
Thank you gents. I have been reading all the comments with interest. I was contacted by a chap on here who has the 2.3 Duratec for sale which is blue and on the PH classifieds. So I really am trying to do my homework and find the right beast for the track. But all your comments have made an interesting read. Thankfully I have a friend who has owned several Caterhams and can drive exceptionally fast on the track and he has been good to bounce ideas off. The lucky sod is getting the new R500 this summer! He said the test drive was amazing!
RobM77 said:
POORCARDEALER said:
Tango is correct I believe there was only 86 R500's made.
And such a shame that they're in such lurid colour schemes! I've thought about buying one a few times in the past, but have never managed to find one in a decent colour. Oh, and without a windscreen!Gassing Station | Caterham | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff