24V whats the story on chain breakages?

[melinx]

Reading the ABS site the chains on the lotus carlton dont last long! Nice car to have if you can afford to repair the engine frequently or drive it gently in which case there is no point in having the Lotus!

I don't think that I've ever seen a Lotus Carlton for sale with many miles on it: I've suspected for some years that the owners were afraid to drive them in case something fell apart

[24vman]

My chain on the Lotus Senator snapped after 52k.

[man of kent]

They seem to go on the Lotus Carlton at around 20-30k miles. Hopeless design really and I'm surprised Lotus didn't change the chains. Makes you wonder if Vauxhall/Lotus did any durability testing. They probably did a couple of thousands of miles and said thats ok ! More like they wanted a loss leader to sell the standard cars in the showroom.

[kevinfourlegs]

Whether its 20-30k or 52k its not on. Vauxhall and/or Lotus should have made sure that the chains were suitable for a minimum 100k. After paying £XXXXX amount, you would think the car was up to the job for which it was built.

I put £XXXXX amount as the cars were priced around £48k, but I did read that some were sold £25-28k as Vauxhall couldn't sell them.

[man of kent]

There not easy to sell now. Been a few on fleabay unsold. They have a bad name for reliability and spare parts are astonomical if you can get them. Nice to have if you want to impress your mates at the pub or the 'next big TC meet'.

I would think you need to do an engine strip regularly to check the chains!

LOTUS - Lots Of Trouble Usually Serious !

[Winky]

There not easy to sell now. Been a few on fleabay unsold. They have a bad name for reliability and spare parts are astonomical if you can get them. Nice to have if you want to impress your mates at the pub or the 'next big TC meet'.

I would think you need to do an engine strip regularly to check the chains!

LOTUS - Lots Of Trouble Usually Serious !

I Disagree.

How easy is it to sell a Senny or GSi at 'proper' money & not giving it away at the mo? The market is full of large engine cars going unsold. Local members to me that have recently sold or been selling theirs don't need the money so weren't/aren't prepared to take silly money for it. They also get a lot of interest from people who would like to own one (without stumping up the money to do so). An LC, IMHO IS NOT an everyday car (some people do use them as such without too much issue) & most of us have them as a ‘weekend’ car but the majority have had the chains replaced with the ABS ones as a preventative measure only & not through breakage. Spares aren’t that big an issue either. Various ABS members can remanufacture parts so not much isn’t available. Guides are 6 cylinder ones which are NLS (although a couple of ABS members are looking into remanufacturing in ally), blocks are a known issue but can also be sorted. If you take my re-build out of the equation (rust) I’ve spent under £200 on mine in the last 2 years (2 MOTs & service parts). Same as any car, if you don’t look after it you’ll get problems. Mechanically I don’t treat my LC any differently to the Senny in that its serviced regularly & anything wrong is put right. In fact I don’t treat it any differently to my wifes Corsa C. Are you worried about the chains on your own car? No!? Why not? Is it because you service it regularly? Would you buy a Ferrari or Lambo & expect to use it every day & it be cheap to run? Look at an LC in the same light & there’s no issues. It was a limited edition car with minimal tolerances on the engine (3.6 was the biggest Lotus thought it could go for a reason) so treat it as such & no problem. & you can give it a thrash, it needs it.

[24vman]

(Agree with Mike - Although he got there before me on the post)

I sort of gree with that, but on the LS, I've had the head modified, new guilds and PH chains.

I've now got reconditioned turbo's to fit.

In the last 4 months (and I am sick to my teeth with it) the only items not been apart and back together is the crank mains, rods and pistons.

It does teach you a lot.  A Lotus engine have far more to bolt back up than a std C30SE engine on a GSI.

I didn't buy the car to impress, I bought it because the price was right and I could fix it myself (mostly).

[man of kent]

No offence meant Winky. The LC is a very specialist car and you should not buy one without knowing it. As they cost an aweful lot of money new I'm not surprised that owners want good money for them. Problem is for sellers there are a lot of very good classic cars available in the £15-20k price bracket that is being asked.

Coming back to chains, you need to ask the chain history of the car before buying it and that probably means all the 24v cars.

[Winky]

No offence meant Winky.

No offence taken I just didn't agree with the comment.

The LC is a very specialist car and you should not buy one without knowing it. As they cost an aweful lot of money new I'm not surprised that owners want good money for them. Problem is for sellers there are a lot of very good classic cars available in the £15-20k price bracket that is being asked.

Agree with that. Most LCs also fall into the category of being a Classic which is still thrashed about.

Coming back to chains, you need to ask the chain history of the car before buying it and that probably means all the 24v cars.

Wholly agree with that too.