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Lotus Emira

Discussion in 'General' started by cortezmachine, Aug 1, 2022.

  1. Dave K

    Dave K DaveK über alles!

    Fuckery
    Fishbone (that’s 8 letters but they a way overlooked band)
    Facades?

    Fabling Is a 7 letter F word
    Raybans perched on a Turd
    Monkey Broome has not been posting
    Ganja dude’s brain is toasting
    Mongo is a big fat meanie
    Acree is a bit of a weenie
    Papa acts all friendly and nice
    In reality serving you up is his vice
    Dave k is sane and not short
    Dits likes to shit in your fort
    Garth grows corn
    Cortez might star in porn
     
    Steeltoe, MGM and CBRRRRR999 like this.
  2. Bruce

    Bruce Tuck & Roll

    It's puff puff pass homie. You're hogging all the ganja. :blart::crackup:
     
  3. R Acree

    R Acree Banned

    I read that DeLorean is going to release a gull wing EV. Go for that one.
     
  4. Tristan

    Tristan Well-Known Member

    Star? An extra/fluffer at best
     
  5. TurboBlew

    TurboBlew Registers Abusers

    hes been into the edibles fo sure!!!
     
    Bruce likes this.
  6. SGVRider

    SGVRider Well-Known Member

    The cheapest Lexus coupe is $45,000. The delta between that and this is significant, but not eye watering. If you have adequate cash flow and investments, I don’t see what the problem is regardless of whether you rent or own.

    Buying a house only makes sense because you have to live somewhere, so may as well get something you can resell that’ll appreciate and also use leverage.

    The choice is between paying around 30-40k for a basic semi-respectable car and paying 70k for something nicer, but you’re buying a car regardless not weighing car vs. house.

    If it’s well within your budget and you’re not reaching, just get the fucking thing. You could get hit by a bus next week anyway.
     
  7. Dave K

    Dave K DaveK über alles!

    We bought our crap shack quite awhile ago and road out the waves of it’s worthless to we’ll buy it for eleventy gazillion dollars. Blah blah blah, who gives a f@ck? Except out payment on it is half of what we could rent it for currently.

    yeap, buying is stupid, you should rent!!!! :rolleyes:
     
  8. notbostrom

    notbostrom DaveK broke the interwebs

    A lot of truth to this. Buy up homes run up the price. Make them unaffordable people have to rent Guess who they now have to rent from. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy
     
  9. notbostrom

    notbostrom DaveK broke the interwebs

    Think about all the things we used to buy and own now we rent or lease

    Music
    Games
    Cars
    Heated seats
    Nav maps
    Homes
    Cell phones

    Everything is a lease or subscription now and it didn't happen by accident
     
    ducnut likes this.
  10. CBRRRRR999

    CBRRRRR999 Well-Known Member

    Still a lot of room for bypassing some of those subscription based services via hacks. Not saying a VPN, a real debrid subscription, Firefox and the like are common knowledge but but people do bypass some of them.
     
  11. Dan Dubeau

    Dan Dubeau Well-Known Member

    Can't wait until we can buy a game genie for our vehicles to unlock all the cheat codes.
     
    pickled egg likes this.
  12. kman0066

    kman0066 Well-Known Member

    My experience with owning a Lotus (I had an Elise). I'm sure the newer cars are different, and they'll probably list themselves like Ducati does every year, "this one's different, it's not the "X" bad quality of old".

    Overall: Build quality was pretty bad, in pretty much every way. But it was a very fun car when it wasn't broke.

    Good parts:
    Driving it was a blast, it's like a track-car for the street. Good suspension, a very stiff frame, and go-kart like handling. It looks unique, and people generally look at them as supercars.

    Bad parts:
    It wasn't very fast. Lightness counts for a lot, but it's not everything. 1st-2nd gear felt fast, then it was a slow turd.
    It was a manual transmission, but the shift linkage was awkward (like most FWD car shifters feel), and caused a loose feeling in shifting. It works, but doesn't feel like a nicer car's shifter would normally.
    The paintwork was terrible, more orange peel than any OEM car I'd ever seen
    The fasteners on the bodywork rusted bad and had to be drilled out when removing a panel (only a 3 year old car at this point, and it was garaged)
    The radiator was super weak, and developed pinholes in it at 20k miles. I discovered this as I was leaving work and my turn signal came loose and started floating in front of me, held on by the wiring harness. Apparently, they cut the hole for the turn signal a little tight, and the tab snapped on it.
    The Toyota engine was great, but the Lotus ECU tune they put on it was bad. Erratic idle and an overly aggressive cam timing that caused it to actually make less power than it could.
    The A/C was terrible, might as well as had no A/C.
    The radio was junk
    The headlights weren't very effective at night
    The rearview mirror came off randomly
    The roof leaked really bad when it rained, and Lotus's answer was to put a sticker on the roof saying "Warning, roof may leak"
    An interior panel popped off randomly (plastic tabs broke), and when I tried to order a new panel, Lotus told me the part was discontinued. Keep in mind, at this point, the car was still in active production. WTF! Was lucky to find a NOS part on Ebay though.
    The brake pads were gone at 25k, along with the rotors. Needed a whole new set all around. I usually get more than that on street cars.
    For street use, you can find the adjustable suspension can get tiring. It handles like a track car all the time, no matter what/where you're driving. No flipping a switch to "tour" mode to give your back a break.
    The suspension was overly-aggressive setup to understeer from the factory. Like MAJOR understeer. Which can be quite surprising when driving a mid-engine car, they usually don't understeer like that, and it just leads to a quick oversteer when you reach the limit. Very exciting to experience. This can be tuned out easily, but if you didn't know any better to go look and change it, you wouldn't ever get the cars true potential.
    Generally, trying to find parts was a pain. They adjust parts mid-year like Triumph, so you have to match your VIN to specific parts, but they don't have sophisticated software to help you do that. The drawings for the parts-fiche looked like a 5yr old drew them by hand.
    They inspect the ECU at the first service. It does tell them how you drove it, and if you listened to the break-in procedures or not. You can lose your warranty right then if you didn't baby it.
    Crack a windshield, good luck finding a replacement. And they cost a fortune when you do find one.

    Sold the Lotus with a total of 25k miles on it. It had lost a lot of value. Not as much as some brands maybe, but it didn't retain it's value like an Italian sports car (Lambo/Ferrari) does. If I were looking for a track car, I'd might consider them again, but for a street car, heck no. Since that car, for sports cars, I've had a Corvette (C6 GrandSport), Lamborghini Gallardo, Audi S7, a Mini Cooper, and now a C8 Corvette. The C8 is a million times more livable on a day-to-day basis, and is my favorite so far. It's not a manual gear-shift, but the paddle-shifters and dual-clutch are super fun. And when you're stuck in traffic, flipping it to Auto, adjusting the suspension to Tour mode, and cranking the A/C & radio is very nice.
     
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  13. pickled egg

    pickled egg Tell me more

    ^^ the post lasted longer than the car did before needing repairs…. ;)
     
    MGM, tiggen, Sabre699 and 2 others like this.
  14. Tristan

    Tristan Well-Known Member

    Never was into gaming, but I still buy everything else here.
     
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  15. JCW

    JCW Well-Known Member

    I drove a lotus esprit turbo for about 4 years.
    '89 if I recall correctly.
    Not a daily but no major maintenance issues... a modern car would run circles around it these days.
    Understeered anywhere close to the limit. Wasnt as light and nimble as it should have been. Power was meh.. but in the 80s nothing was all that great .

    Looked cool though. Popup lights were so fire back then.
     
  16. rymerc

    rymerc Well-Known Member

    There was a nice espirit s4 whatever v8 twin turbo for sale here a few years back. Went to look at it, and it was cool as hell, but even with low miles all kinds of stuff was really cheap and janky, like interior pieces delaminating and things falling off.

    Someone in a really uppity suburb nearby bought it, and I'd see it rain snow or shine for like a month. Then never again. Cars are more reliable now. Mostly.
     
  17. Boman Forklift

    Boman Forklift Well-Known Member

    You are so right. I bought my first home in Flower Mound a suburb of Dallas for 68K in 1987 and I was making 100K a year so I didn't live above my means back then. Moved to California end of 89 and still own that first house. Anyway, first house in California was $175K in 1993, We put 20K into fixing it up and sold it for 155k in 1996, so we lost 40K. It is worth over 800K now....wooo hoooo.

    In 95 I bought my current house for $292k and put 100K into it fixing it up. It was a new home so I had to landscape, hardscape, carpet, tile, gutter, window tint, wood blinds, etc.

    My work buddie bought his Cal house about 12-18 months later in Newport Beach 7-8 houses from the water in the area of Newport where you walk right in front of the houses on the boardwalk. He paid $450K, so 50% more than I paid and then put in some money remodeling it. I do remember thinking......HOW ARE YOU GOING TO AFFORD THAT? He no longer has it, but I think his place is worth about 3 million now, so still roughly 50% more than my place.
     
  18. diggy

    diggy Well-Known Member

    Lived on 45th for 8 years, loved that area after college.. That was the area that I was referencing
     
  19. Boman Forklift

    Boman Forklift Well-Known Member

    Yea it’s a pretty cool area, not sure what that area is called? I thought that could be the area you were talking about, but wasn’t sure? Wish I had bought down there. Not sure I would have liked it when raising kids but when I was mid 20 to early 30s and probably now in late 50s it would be cool.

    I think his place was around 32nd. I can still see it in my mind, just don’t remember the street number.
     
  20. diggy

    diggy Well-Known Member

    Balboa Peninsula is the name of that area...
     
    Boman Forklift likes this.

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