Who has an Elise????

[mylamb]

I test drove one in Atlanta. I really liked it. The dealer went with me but I expected as much! Hell, the ONLY way I would consider a delicate Lotus would be if it had a Toyota motor! I must admit, it took me several seconds for ingress/egress, so I would not consider it a daily driver.

[spine911]

There are 2 major things(Good &Bad) to consider when you are in the market for an Elise...The Good(probably the best) part is the Toyota engine which delivers in reliability, durability, performance, cost maintenance (not everything that is cheap/er has poor performance ....). The Bad (for some it is good because of the lightweight factor) is the carbon fiber body, most Elises that ive'd seen that suffered a significant (not major) damage is often given a Salvaged title by the insurance companies because of the high cost of body rebuilding.

[insite]

Originally Posted by spine911

The Bad (for some it is good because of the lightweight factor) is the carbon fiber body, most Elises that ive'd seen that suffered a significant (not major) damage is often given a Salvaged title by the insurance companies because of the high cost of body rebuilding.

i was JUST going to post on this. i considered picking up an elise / exige for a track toy instead of the boxster. several guys from elisetalk.com go to the track w/ me frequently. one of them had just had his car repaired from a MINOR bump in a parking lot. it was $12,500. i saw the damage before hand; it was a ding the size of a small cell phone.

[fragdude]

Originally Posted by spine911

There are 2 major things(Good &Bad) to consider when you are in the market for an Elise...The Good(probably the best) part is the Toyota engine which delivers in reliability, durability, performance, cost maintenance (not everything that is cheap/er has poor performance ....). The Bad (for some it is good because of the lightweight factor) is the carbon fiber body, most Elises that ive'd seen that suffered a significant (not major) damage is often given a Salvaged title by the insurance companies because of the high cost of body rebuilding.

http://autos.aol.com/cars-Lotus-Elise-2009/expert-review

The body is not made out of carbon fiber. Its a hand-laid specially made fiber glass, which is more expensive than your basic body parts, but not as expensive as carbon fiber.