Buying your first Lotus Elise Things you must check

[Music] hi guys and if you're watching this video you're most likely about to buy a Lotus Elise and believe me there are fun cars there are great cars to drive they have terrific road-holding they are fast and they are quite easy to maintain they are not very complex but the Lotus Elise as - hasn't been built since quite a while so if you're going out on the market and look for one you're gonna end up with at best a secondhand one but even in third fourth or fifth hand and that is often a bit of a problem because not everybody is taking care of his Lotus Elise as they should they will be abused they will be used on tracks they will be modified whatever you have and to be very honest I really recommend that you try to find one which is as original as possible so if you're planning to use the lease as your daily commuter card then I don't think that's a good idea they are not comfortable they are very hard the seats are very tough because it's a sports car it's almost like a race car so you get the go-kart feeling so if you're looking for comfort for your daily commuting don't do it unless you're a young guy then you can deal with all this but if you are a seasoned guy like me then you really don't want to drive it that way you want to have some more comfort so it's more kind of a weekend car kind of a hobby car but then again I'll leave that up to you the other thing is that if you're a tall guy more than one meter eighty it's going to be tough to get in and out because inside they are really small and I'll show you that in a minute how hard it is to get in and even this one has the top removed so can imagine if you are having the top on how that will look like in the city or whatever you go and he trying to get out and you're a tall guy how you have to squeeze yourself into it you know it's not a pretty sight so you might want to think about it and if you are a bit overweight in fact if you are overweight then this is not the car for you because you're just not not going to fit in it I mean the seats are very narrow and you'll see that in a minute so let's have a look how easy it is to get in and out of the Lotus Elise and let's look up the seats and let's look a bit at the interior because it is a very Spartan card and don't get me wrong I love it it's a great sports car it has that genuine racing character in it and that's what we all like about it and if that's what you're looking for then go after one if that's not what you're looking for then you might as well stop watching this video because it's not gonna help you much so let's have a look so I have removed the soft top on this one just to give you a better sight inside but this is normally where the roof sits so you see how much space you have so there isn't a lot of space if you look on the seats I mean they are really hard and notice how white they are they are not really wide at all I mean if you're a big guy you're not gonna fit all right so let me show you how hard it can be to get in and that's even with the roof removed so normally you would slide in like this and vine will yourself down in the seed and then take your other leg inside and then you would move the seat forward in fact it was already forward and that's it you know if there's not much space in it and I don't have to passenger seat with me I took it out because I'm cleaning that up but you can see how simple the dashboard is how Spartan it all is you know and and and if you look at me I'm not a very tall guy but I just barely fit in the seat I have almost nothing left on besides just about this much a few centimeters so if you're a bit why did I mean you're going to be pressed into that seat which is probably good because you want to drive fast and take fast corners so you're very well held in place by the chair oh you can slide the feet forward or backward but not that far I see you don't have that much play so for tell folks you always have to move the seat back to get out and remember the roof is right here so not easy so if you're one of those guys that is tall and not very flexible and maybe a bit overweight it may be a bit tough to get in and out but okay enough of that so let me show you now around the car how it looks like because if you go in for your vehicle you will have clamshells on it here on this one I have the clamshells removed so you can actually have a look what's under it so you know where to look for it so I'm going to be talking a bit about the motor the transmission you know the suspension the brakes all these little things so let's take a tour around the car now watch me suffering getting out because I'm an old guy in the front of the car you have your radiator which is sitting inside this kraut then you have the Christ box which is very expensive if you have to replace that and then you have the brake cylinders and a lot of electronics in here and you can actually access some of that through the panels which are sitting on the top if you have to work on the radiator or you have a bad radiator then you have to take off the clamshell and get to it so it's a bit of work so it's always expensive because working hours are expensive so now let me take you to the back of the car that's where the engine is so here you have it the engine is in the back it's a lateral engine you cannot get to it very easily because normally there's a cover here and you need to lift that up and then you have access to it but it's very tough to get at it so working on it is always a pain in the butt let's face that so remember that you will have sore knuckles whenever you work on your Lotus Elise engine so if you don't mind about that then just go and buy one otherwise don't anyhow just kidding but the Lotus Elise the s2 has two types of engines it has the K a Rover engine which is this one and then it has as well the Toyota engine different engines different weak spots but we'll talk about that in a few minutes okay the engine let me first start talking about the K engine it's a very good engine built by Rover however it's driven by a distribution belt and this is a distribution belt or that came off one of those engines and the distribution belt is behind this cover and it's connected between the crankshaft and the camshaft and that belt has to be changed every 70,000 kilometers or every five years so if you're out there looking for a Lotus Elise ask the owner when was the last time that the timing belt was changed now if he is not able to answer that question then he probably never replaced if he says he replaced it then he should remember how expensive it wasn't how hard it was to do it because you have to remove the engine mount you have to remove the pulley in the back to change all that to change the timing belt if he claims that he did it himself then ask him for the special tools that you required to lock the camshaft if he hasn't any of that or has no clue that he's lying and then I would note on my little scratch pad - 700 euros because that's the price it's gonna cost you to get a timing belt replaced by a professional at the same time we typically replace the water pump this is the water pump a very small piece because the timing belt rip runs over that and once you've got the cover removed for the timing belt you might as well change out the water pump so to avoid any failures and at the same time there is a tensioner this tensioner still looked pretty good which is putting the tension up onto the belt and all that stuff is behind this cover so afterwards even if you have to change the water pump you have to take all this off and believe me it is not easy so 700 euros for that this is a weak spot of the Lotus Elise and if it's not done you should do it when you buy one if there is any doubt that the guy in question has never changed it a lot of people lie about this the second issue with this engine is a blown head gasket it's quite common and the reason for that is that determines that and this is the thermostat is sitting at the return or the cold water going into the engine and normally determines that is closed when the engine is cold and it opens up as soon as the engine gets warmer so it can cool and circulate the water from the front radiator through the water pump through the engine block and I'm back to have a cold the problem is then when the engine is cold the thermostat is closed and with a closed thermostat there is no circulation of water around the engine or inside the engine so if you drive the vehicle very fast from the beginning and you don't let up warm up then the ancient Miller gets very hot and it won't be cooled until the thermostat opens up now the heat that has been created by the agent has to propagate through the water all the way to the front and the radiator and then back and then hit the rate the term estat and then the terminus that will open up but once it opens up its gonna cause a thermal shock on the cylinder head because the water is a lot colder than actually the temperature of the cylinder head and in fact if you really push back push down the trouble and you really demand a lot of power and you actually abuse the car from the start when it's cold you have given it time to warm up that cylinder head will be very hot and you got you're gonna get thermal shock and then after a few times it will blow the cylinder head gasket this is a well known problem now for that there is a cure and that is a special kit that will fix that with different tubing and I'll show you that in a second now of course you won't know how the driver drove the car but there is quite often an indication on the dipstick if you see white spots on the dipstick that's typically an indication that he's been forcing the car when it was cold and actually was almost suffering from overheating during that short cycle so that's something you need to check and we'll check the oil in a few minutes now I would look for the modification of the cooling system on those Lotus releases and as well on the Toyotas and let me show you close-up what you should be looking for if that modification is in place then you're good if it's not then I would recommend that you put it in but put it on your debit list as a 250 euro cost because that's why it's kind of cost you even if you do it yourself ah so let me show you up close where you need to look for it on the left-hand side of the engine bay you will find the cooling liquid reservoir and under you should find this white pop this is the one and that white pop that is the mechanism or the modification kit that prevents the head gasket to blow especially when it's used under heavy load when the engine is cold so that is a very positive modification to have so the thermostat housing modification is a very positive modification and it's really recommended but be very careful with other modifications on the engine a lot of people will claim that engine is modified it has so many more horsepower these are not good things believe me if notice built the edge into a certain performance level there had the reason for that I mean of course every engine you can crank up and produce more power but it will cost you on long liberty and reliability on the engine so I wouldn't buy an engine which has been tuned it also means that the owner probably did some track days with it so I would rather you know walk away from that car but on the other hand if you're an expert and you know exactly what you're looking at then okay no issue for that I mean I cannot say that you may not buy that car it's just what I would recommend to you if you were a novice buyer or an average buyer for a Lotus Elise okay so these were the main two points on on that engine that you really for the rest the engine is quite good of course you should check the cooling liquid that it's it's nice and clear and you should check the oil and so let's have a look on the dipstick on how that looks like so the dipstick is to be found on the right hand side of the engine it's this yellow thing it could be another color on yours it depends a bit and then let's pull it out and have a look how that looks like and as you can see the oil is nice and clear not black at all there's no white foam on it so if you see white foam on it stay clear of the agent because that means that there is in there water leak and water is leaking into the oil if you see white spots on the stick anywhere that actually means that the owner has been forcing the engine very heavily the one it was cold and it's actually subject - blowing the hat gasket as I just explained before so that would be an indication on how you could spot that owner wasn't careful enough so as far as the engine goes this is about it there is also a kit for the Toyota engine to protect the head gasket to blow so the two kids exist the Toyota engine is less of an issue it's a very rigid engine it doesn't have the timing belt so you're quite all right on that one but still you know check the cooling liquid check the dipstick make sure everything is ok as I explained and then the next thing is we will start looking a bit at the gearbox but first of all I like to mention one more thing a lot of people will tell you that hey you know what this car has a modified exhaust we have the sports exhaust on and you know to be honest that's not added value whatsoever and some people will try to tell you that hey we've got a sports exhaust on our Lotus Elise and and it's so much better and they pretend it's kind of added value in essence it is not added value because these sports exhaust like this one is an unoriginal one are cheaper than the original Lotus exhaust systems and a sports exhaust doesn't bring any added horsepower unless you modify the exhaust manifold and in most cases that hasn't happened they just put a sport exhaust on because it sounds nicer and it's cheaper to PI so that's in most cases the reason why that's on those Lotus Elise's now it doesn't do no harm so don't get me wrong but don't pay more for it because it's not justifiable to pay more for that part so so far we've been doing a lot of static checks on the engine we haven't done anything on the gearbox yet but that's coming in a few minutes but first of all we will read out now all the error codes that are existing on the ECU because the ECU in the back of the Lotus Elise is registering all the readings from all the different sensors and it's logging actually folds as they are in the engine and so if you can read that out then you have a pretty good indication of what the cost will be to fix those there should be no error codes and if you do have error codes then it may be something wrong now you will need a little tool for that and let me show you what this tool is about so this is a very cheap obd2 reader it doesn't cost a lot about 40 euros and it's worthwhile the investment because you can use it on any type of car to read out the basic error codes this is the connector which you need to plug in to the obd2 plug which is underneath your dashboard and that is a bit difficult together but let me show you where that sits it's underneath the dashboard although in the end that's where the OBD plug is you know really comfortable and then you just need to plug in the plug and then you could then you can read out the code so let me plug that in for you so we can have a look alright guys I've got the meter plugged in and as soon as you plug it in you get a message saying turn the ignition on so that's what we are about to do make sure the car don't start it okay just an on the ignition there you go and then press any key as whatever the device tells you it may be different on yours so I'm gonna press any key now it's going to scan for the correct protocol I can now read the codes and I'm going to read the codes the stored codes and I will select notice obviously and as you can see you can deal with many different cars so it's not a lost investment enter so it found one code @p 1402 and it found another code so it actually found two codes for that because those are propriety codes but for the rest it didn't found any other code so as you could see we had to error codes on this vehicle and they were undefined standard codes because they are lotus unique and that's a little bit of the problem with obd2 and manufacturers they always create you know private codes and so on but you can look it up by on Lotus manuals and in those two codes that I have here were actually related to a aerco problem now the scar doesn't have an aerco and the second problem was related to the ventilator or the fan on the radiator not running no I know that's not the case because it is running it's just that the sensor isn't really working or the feedback mechanism doesn't work so these are two small things that I really have no effect on the car but there are error codes so the air code is something you need to think about because it means somebody has programmed it in and maybe the issue was changed one moment in time who knows and the program that programmed it wrong but it doesn't do no harm now if you have other codes more standard codes that are having a problem then you will you can read out in clear text what the real problem is so that's the good thing so let's do a few more things now let's check the gearbox and start the car so if you're going to check a car out I really recommend that you make sure that the engine is cold so put your hand on the engine and make sure it's cold if the engine is warm that means that the owner knew you were coming and he already started the car before you maybe to hide some issues I don't know that's something I'm always very aware of that the engine has to be cold if it's one tell them that you will come back when the engine is cold or you wait until the engine is cold now um the gearboxes now the gearbox is very rigid it's a very good gearbox on the K motor but also to Teo don't want now that the auto gearbox has a bit of a problem between second and third gear the synchro masters can wear out rather quickly on those but that's what you need to find out when you do the road test now the stick shift the Lotus Elise our controls the gearbox the shifting of the gears with it stick shift and is a cabling system inside then you can check one of my videos on how that all that works and these cables tend to wear out that's another weak spot and then it becomes very difficult to actually select the gears so try out and see if you can select the gears very easily you know like so now here it works fine and in idle position the stick shift should go back between third and fourth gear in the central position that's where it should go if it doesn't then you probably have worn out cables on the gearbox and I'll show you that in a few minutes in the back alright um for the rest arm there is not much to be said about it except that you want to start the car now starting the car we always will have an alarm system you can see the blinking light and I hope you can see it so you leave the fault or this alarm flop and always make sure you have to and ask him for two because if you lost one then you can order a second one but without that you might be lost this and it's gonna cost you about 150 euros so put that back on your debit list if he doesn't have a second one so let's turn it off it's turned off and let's crank up the engine and it should start fairly easily and as you can tell it starts immediately it revs around 1,200 1,100 but it should fall down to about 800 rpms and now you let it run let it sit there for a while and check that the temperature comes up properly the temperature should be around 82 degrees centigrade when the engine is at the top of working temperature so just let it sit there now when they show you an engine is cold you're not going to have a display it's going to take a few seconds or minutes before it actually start reading something [Music] and one the agent is a little bit warmer then you can't roll up a bit and then at the puddle go and these should nicely fall back to 800 rpm if it does not you may have a trouble housing problem on the engine but that is quite uncommon but it does happen sometimes if the engine doesn't start well that's not good that's really an issue now you still might have your tester connected like I do and now I actually we can check some live data let's check the temperature right now temperature is about 77 degrees centigrade and you can also see it on your dashboard by the way and it's going to go up to about 78 and it's gonna keep going up and it should stabilize around 82 degrees centigrade so that is a pretty good test you can do with this little tester or you can check out our things as well and also some of the tests will arrive did you check the live data so two different values of the map and the math and all that but that stuff really stuff if you really want to get deep into it that you can want to do but not in this case so I'm going to let the engine run now for a little bit and then we'll check the temperature if it stabilizes around 82 degrees centigrade now while we wait there is one more thing you might want to check while you're in the cabin is that the brake pedal feels very firm and put your foot on it and keep your foot on and keep pressing and it should not sink down it should feel like a rock almost the other thing is the clutch depress the clutch pedal put it in gear and let the clutch calm upwards and it should start picking up around one third release so not all the way at the end and not all the way at the beginning because that wouldn't be very good so let's check the brakes on now the brakes are pretty good on a Lotus Elise however if the car has been used on track days then the discs will be worn out so check the discs and make sure that the thickness of the discs is still 25 millimetres if it's less than that put 600 euros down on your scratch pad check also the calipers in the front the Lotus Elise is fiddly with AP Racing calipers in the back is a Rambo and check the flexible cables so the flexible hose is that they are so intact and good now the brake pads themselves should have a minimum thickness of 2.5 millimeters check the brake fluid that is actually clear and not polluted and as the guy when it was changed last time so as you can see this is pretty clear crystal-clear brake fluid and ask him when it was changed last time because it should be changed every years because it absorbs water if the guide tells you that they have silicon based brake fluid in it not good the Lotus Elise shouldn't have that it should have dot for wrecking fluid in it you can get access to this part through the access panel in front of the clamshell so you have to remove that and then you can get to it ah so we looked on the disks and the disks they can come in many different sizes but typically the original one would have solid disk solid metal disks they wouldn't be aluminum they would not be perforated but they may have fitted out this because disks do wear out that's a consumable on a card but whatever is on the car check that the disk is having the right thickness of 25 millimeters and that there are no deep grooves in the surface so if you find groove in it deep grooves that means that the owner did not in time replace the brake pads and he pushed through the protective layer of the brake pads and he scratched the disks in that case you will have to replace the brake pads and the disks so then you should put in use in your note pad at least another 800 euros of cost so all that I said so far about cost you should deduct from the final price okay good one last thing we need to check on the brakes is the rear brakes because that's based on a self-adjusting caliber in the back but where the brake cable and the manual brake which is sitting in the cockpit should only have a few notches upwards and not more than that and it should break very well now the cables tend to corrode badly over time so let's have a look on that so objective the carpet a little protective paper removed you will see here the manual brake cables and that's where the corrosion is happening you need to check a lot especially where the cable fits into the metal part that's really a bad spot and you can only see it when the panel is removed and the same brake cable terminates under air caliber and that's as well where you find corrosion you may take a plier and pull it back a bit and make sure that none of these steel strains are actually broken with the rear panel removed you can also see the gearbox shifting mechanism that's these cables right here and they should be in pretty good shape if not you will facing shifting problems that's what I showed you before and that's something to be checked out again you can only see this when you remove the diffuser and the rear protection panel and while we under the car you may as well check for leaks on the gearbox and on the engine and they should be all dry in fact you should only look at the inside of that protective shield that we removed and if there's all spots or drips on that one then you know something is leaking and you need to have a closer look of what the problem really is so the next thing to inspect is the suspension now the Lotus Elise is fitted with wrist bones and this is a wishbone there's one on the top this one on the bottom the same thing happens in the back and these wizz bones should not be bent or cracked and they should not be heavily corroded either to wishbones or mounted on aluminum this is aluminum body and it's not uncommon to see that aluminum body being damaged and getting thin in fact even broken off on some sites so if you see that then stay clear of the car because that is not good whatsoever and very hard to fix in fact it's almost impossible to fix so check that part at least on the front bushes that where the bolts are sticking in that there is no wear and tear really all the aluminum do it both on the top and on the bottom wishbones because that is very important so the other part to check are the the ball joints and they are fitted at the end of the wrist bones on the top and on the bottom there's two of them and they should be intact it should be nothing wrong with it there should be no play on it and here is an old one that's how it looks like and in fact I have pasted all of them on this vehicle because I just could the best way to do this is actually to put the car on the jack and then actually try to swivel the wheel back and forth you know and see if there is any play anywhere and they shouldn't see no play whatsoever if you feel play then you need to count at least about 200 euros per site per wheel to fix the bushes and the ball joints if you do it yourself if you get it done it's going to be quite more expensive because these bushes are very hard to get in and out and it's very labor-intensive so once you've checked the wrist bones and they all look good there are no cracks they're not banned the bushes are good and you hear no funny signs when you move the wheel back and forth in fact when you do your test right you should not hear any funny clunking so this is something you need to pay attention to and there's one more thing we need to check on the suspension and that is of course the riding height so you need to measure from the tooling holes underneath the car that the the height of the right is about 120 millimetres 130 110 depends a bit on the model you're looking for it you will find the holes underneath the cells in the front and in the back and you can measure from the hole in the chassis to the floor the distance and it should be equal on all four corners now you have to plate the car on a firm solid ground and then you can do that I have a video on that one and it's called checking the straightness of the chassis you can check that out on my youtube channel because it's a bit labor-intensive to do if you measure the riding height and it's not equal on all four corners then the chassis could be bent but you could have a problem with the suspension system because some vehicles have adjustable suspension systems and they could be off you may as well have a broken spring so please pay close attention to that check the springs out check if it's an adjustable suspension place the car on the flat and horizontal surface and then measured the distance between the tuning holes and the ground that should be the same on all four points if it's not the same I would probably take the car - or asking the car to a specialist Lotus dealer or something like that or a garage that can actually check your chassis straightness or you might want to do it yourself and then have my video on that one so um so far so good the last thing we need to check on the suspension is actually the tow control link and the tow control Inc is a bar that controls the toe-in of the rear wheels and if that bar snaps then you're really in trouble because then the car will be totally uncontrollable in the back of the car you will find the tow control link this is this bar right here and that is an adjustable bar to control the towing of the rear wheel now often if people took the vehicle on a track quite often or they had wide grip tires you would actually see cracks on this bar now this bar should have no cracks whatsoever it should completely be intact and also the bolts that are fitted on that one should be perfect there should be no damage on that one survived because that's critical and Lotus Elise is known to be suffering from issues on the top controlling so that's what you need to check if they are bad you should replace them and then you should count at least another three four hundred euros for a set of those tow controlling bars with the proper matching parts that you will have to fit on the side and it's a bit of work but it's not that bad and also check that the gaiter on the drive shaft is intact and you should check both at the inner side near to the gearbox which is over there and the side towards the wheel these gauges should be actually having no damage or anything there should be no grease no nothing on it if that is the case then you have to probably replace the gaiter or the driveshaft and that's going to run you another 600 euros roughly per side so one more thing before you take the vehicle on the road test is to check the wear and tear on the tyres there shouldn't be two months wear and tear on one side of the tire they should look quite alright now in the back of the Lotus Elise will we have a negative camber so the wheels are pointing inwards a bit so you're going to have a bit more wear on the inner side of the tyres not too much but the wear should be the same on both sides if it's not then he probably have a geometric problem and you might have to adjust a camber or the toe-in and chamfer and all these different things may have to be adjusted so you should take it to an adjustment bench to get it all aligned I have a couple of videos as well on how you can do it yourself but now the last this is about estimating the value of a Lotus Elise when you're on a site and you're looking at one so pay attention to that if the tires have abnormal wear and tear it's not a disaster but it means the alignment is off of the vehicle so count another hundred euros for the alignment if they don't have to do too much work on it and then of course you will have to get new tires as well so which is probably around another thousand euros depending on what kind of tires you're gonna put on so it all starts adding up but put all this on your notepad because this is what you're gonna need at the end to bargain with a guy all right so all we looked at suspension we looked at the brakes we looked at the engine we looked at the gearbox so now we're gonna look a little bit on the body now there is not much to be said about the body because it's darn inexpensive you can see how thin the shells are right see this is really thin material so this can crack very easily and it's very hard to repair so normally you have a rear clamshell in the back and that should have no cracks or no damage on it so look for very thin cracks and if you look close and you see all these little lines in there that run across this little plate these are cracks actually inside the structure and that's an indication of damage that has happened on the car but they couldn't repair you can't repair it unless you to replace the whole thing then it already Pierce now typically the rear clamshell is not gonna have a lot of damage but the front clamp shall wail because there it is so low to the ground and you might want to check all the way on the bottom on the nose if there is any damage on the clam shell or any repairs and most likely we'll have a couple of repairs but if it's done right it's not an issue by the way this is not polyester so let's have a little bit a look on the front because I want to show you something on the crash box something you really need to do so normally you will have the clamshell coming over this and in the front that's where the clamshell attaches to and you should feel underneath the clamshell or if there is any damaged sign of repair and look for cracks in it and then if you can look through the drill and look at this stud now this stud should not be rusted or bent or very heavily corroded so this is an example how the towing stud should not be looking like you see how it's already been bent here and how its corroded this is just asking for trouble the same is happening on the bottom so this is not a good condition of a towing stud so if you see that avoid it because that's the stuff you're gonna use to tow dealies now if you see this still being bent heavily or damaged it means it's being towed a couple of times the most likely the vehicle has done quite on track days so pay attention to that because if you have to replace this very simple piece of metal you have to take the whole firm clam shell off and that will become quite labor intensive and expensive so another common problem that you'll see with the Lotus Sinise is that the windows are not closing all the way to the top now normally we have the roof here and the window she's coming against the rubbers that you have all around the surrounding and often you will see a gap on the top or a gap on the sides and that is because the window is badly adjusted now by itself that's not a big issue because you can adjust the window on three places and I have a video on that as well if you want to see it check my youtube channel but if you're trying to buy a car from an owner that has not fixed these windows that drives with gaps on the window because then you get when then you make out the rain inside that means that this owner doesn't take very well care of his car so we've looked at many things on this Lotus Elise and I hope I've been able to give you sufficient information so far so now we're getting to the actual test right as I said before make sure that the engine is cold when you arrive that you can warm it up while you're sitting there keep an eye on the temperature range you know between 82 it can go up and down a bit up to even 90 and then back down and then it's time to take it for a test ride so don't let the guy drive drive yourself take it easy take your time and we'll do a couple of tests on the test drive the first thing I think we should be doing is driving in a straight line and accelerate on that straight line remove your hands from the steering wheel but keep them close enough just in case you need to interact now while you accelerate the car should go in a straight line forward that's why you should try if it does not then most likely the alignment of the car is off and you have to get a realigned and you just hope that they don't have to put too many shims in and adjustments but that could cost you you know between 100 and 300 euros at all depending on how much work there is online so that's one thing you should try to do along the same Drive then grab the steering wheel again and hold it in your hands and then actually apply very slight pressure on the brakes so that the pads are just touching so you can still drive and feel it the car shouldn't start shaking there should be no funny sounds and the steering wheel should have no Jimmy and the pedal should feel ok you should not feel any vibration on the on the brake pedal because if you have vibration on the brake pedal that would mean that that actually did the discs himself or bent they are no longer straight you can't really tell which one it is but if the pedal vibrates the brake pedal that is then you most likely have a problem on the rear calipers if the steering wheel estate yeah if the steering wheel also has this kind of a little bit of the jebbie on it while you do that slight break and you have it on the brake pedal as well then most then it's going to be the front brakes for sure that are having that disc problem and then you need to replace them and again as I said they could run you between 600 and 800 euros depending on what kind of this is going to put on a new brake power pants that's a good test so the next thing you want to do is drive along the same road again and let the searing will go again but keep your hands close enough again just to be safe and then brake properly and the car should brake in a straight line now obviously the road shouldn't be wet then it should be an equal Road and all this but you know that that's not a big deal so the next thing to do is to swing a bit with the car from the left to the right and you need to do that to check that is no funny sounds clunking sounds or weird backgrounds when you move to the left or to the right clicking sounds you don't happen because if they do happen that could be an indication that the suspension isn't right that the bushes are no right or the uprights are not right the ball joints on the uprights but we checked that already but that could be another indication now it's always better to check it on the road as well than just doing a static check and you should do both I'll take a sharp curve to the left you know and accelerate us at the same time a bit and listen to any funny sounds grinding sounds or something like that and if you can hear these sounds coming from the outer wheels of the curve that then typically an indication that the bearings of the wheels are gone now a bearing runs you about 150 euros a piece per wheel then you can turn to the other side a sharp curve to the right and then on the left-hand side if you hear that kind of grinding sound then that would probably be the bearings on the left-hand side that are gone but these are quite uncommon problems but they may occur so um and that's about it so at the end of the day the guy will be asking a certain price and you should consider that he already added some extra on top of it so you should did that the factor 10% from it to be to be right now let's take an example let's take a 2003 2004 Lotus Elise as two with a moderate amount of kilometres because we didn't talk about the knowledge of the kilometres on it but let's say around 6070 thousand kilometres which is what probably you should be looking at they're probably going to ask you about twenty two thousand euros twenty thousand euros that seems to be the price range today but drop down 10% and then remembered that little checklist or the scratchpad we talked in the beginning where you note it down all the little defect you've seen do that and then deducted that song from the total cost and tell also the owner why you do that and I knew have a good deal now of course how much money you want to deduct for all the the work you have to do depends if you can do the work yourself or not but anyway this is my advice to you if you want to biota cities there are really fun cars to drive and I'm sure if you buy a good one you will really enjoy it if you buy a bad one you will not enjoy it believe me you will have more hassle than anything else so good hunting guys and thank you for watching this video bye-bye

Channel: D3Sshooter

Views: 119,025

Rating: 4.9251823 out of 5

Keywords: Lotus, Elise, S2, buying, check, it out, weaknesses, what you should know, secondhand, engine, cooling, distribution belt, brakes, susspension, veryfication, cost, repair, selling, things to check, roadtest, road, test, before you buy, modifications, wheels, clamshell, gearbox, geometry, OBD2, error reading, price, assesment

Id: eVWh88old2M

Length: 45min 23sec (2723 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 24 2018