picked her back up on saturday. stage 2 was swapped out under warranty (cracked weld) which impressed me as i had assumed they would try to fix it again rather than replace. Little disappointed that the seat rails werent replaced, apparently the movement in mine is within expectations, and ultimately this is a decision that Lotus make and not B&C.
A048’s are close to legal limit on the back, will replace in the new year. Still plenty of tread on the fronts, which figures. Brakes 75% left on the fronts, 65% on the backs - pleasant surprise!
Total cost �400 (had brake pedal adjusted too), again inline with what I expected.
As much as I love B&C, that seems a bit pricey to me. Not for them, just in comparison to other places. Personally, I’d have thought the pedal adjustment should have been done under warranty. I just had my clutch replaced/upgraded at Lakeside for little more than that.
my first year recently cost about �200 from an independent specialist.
still not exctly cheap when other specialist wil do it for closer to �100.
At the end of the day its not much mor than an oil and filter change.
I def wouldnt pay �400
You get what you pay for steve, they’re a quality bunch of people. To be honest, they may not even offer the best service, but they’ve known and love Loti for many and many years. I trust them.
sinclair are still 200 pounds compared to 400 for b&c, so thats a fair saving.
I dont buy the idea that you are paying for reputation and better service.
I think the 100 pound places are fibreglass services and horizon.
both seem to have a very good reputation from peoples experiences and both are lotus specialists
I’m absolutely dreading taking the car into the main dealers for it’s offical servicing for this very reason…And it’s very nearly due for it’s first stamp in the book… Arghhh, what to do.
Since the summer, I have covered 6500 miles, which nearly all of them have been to and from trackdays. Due to this, it has already had 3 oil and filter changes done, the first one was done at the dealers at 650 miles and two were carried out by myself at approx 3k and 5.5k. And tbh with you, I feel as though I have probably done a much better job than any main dealer in the UK ever could do!! Why? well first off it has only cost a fraction of the price it would if I sent it in to have it done - �50 each time for 5lts oil, a filter and a sump plug gasket. Then theres the questions to be asked with the dealers wether or not your car was taken out for a drive to bring the oil upto operating temperature before they dropped it??(in these conditions I would guess it could take 20 mins or more?). How long did they leave the oil plug out to drain before saying - Right, thats it! Get the bloody thing filled with oil and out of the workshop and the next one in! We all know what the dealers can be like, if only we could all see what actually goes on behind the scenes…
Lets face it, Other than doing a cam-belt change, most other servicing items can be done with relative ease (even if you have no mechanical background) if your shown how to do it. In fact, it’s pretty much all in the back of the user manual, even how to cahnge the g/box oil.
I’m seriously thinking about just keeping a good reciept record and a diary on the car for what work was done and when. The way the prices are falling for s/hand units atm, I really cant see how a dealer fsh is worth the money you have to spend for the work that is actually carried out.
I dont buy the idea that you are paying for reputation and better service.
I rate Mike highly too, but Horizon don’t have an engineer from the Lotus factory there virtually every week looking at and working on customers cars, B&C do. Their access to Lotus is unrivaled. For a new model I don’t think your car can be better looked after. Unfortunately you have to pay for that.