Scratches on the interior chassis

The Oily Bits S1 Specific Topics
1

Hi all,I’ve got a number of scratches on the interior chassis, mainly on the side rail and the area in front of the seat on the drivers side (the ribbed thing - never did know what its called). Here’s a couple of pics:- http://www.btinternet.com/~tjthompson/jct600/dsc00060.jpg http://www.btinternet.com/~tjthompson/jct600/dsc00059.jpg http://www.btinternet.com/~tjthompson/jct600/dsc00058.jpg Does anyone have any suggestions as to what could be done to repair these? The Lotus chassis repair paint has already been tried and doesn’t work (it just flakes/wipes off). Is it even possible to repair? Also, is the chassis coated with something to help protect it?The reason I ask is that the dealer is messing me around so I thought I’d do a bit of my own research…Cheers,T

2

Tony, can’t see the pics at the moment, suspect BT are playing up - I’ll see if I can offer some useful suggestions when I can see what we’re dealing with…

3

Tony…how goes it…I take it you have your car back again?I also have a scuffed chassis rail…that was pointed out to JCT by me prior to actually taking delivery…dispite promises that it would be fixed they never did anything…in hindsight thats probably for the best as i think its quite difficult to know where to start.My only suggestion would be to try and polish it out if it was not very deep, but the chassis does look as if it has a finish on it and I think this might actually make it look worse.I can see why paint would not stick…at least not without keying the surface first and I’m not sure i would want to risk the repair looking worse that the original problem.In my case I have concluded that its just something I’m going to have to live with…OK if its not large or glaring as yours appears to be.Let me know if there is a proper fix other than covering it in silver vinyl or gaffer tape!

4

Nope, haven’t got the car back - I’m still refusing to accept it. I spent an hour and a half arguing with John Tordoff (the MD of JCT600 Brooklands), the Sales Manager and the Service Manager. The upshot of it all is that they are refusing to refund or replace. They reckon I haven’t got any legal comeback against them and the case would simply get thrown out of court - they would say that though wouldn’t they…They’ve already tried the Lotus supplied Chassis Repair Kit but it just wipes and flakes off. So, they are going to contact Lotus on Monday to see if they have an alternative to the silver chassis paint…The scratches have gone through the coating and into the metal underneath so I have absolutely no idea how they are going to perform a repair… I’m hoping they can’t.If it was my fault the scratches were there, I would live with them - since JCT600 caused them, they can suffer the consequences…I need to preempt what JCT600 are going to say to me next week so I can prepare my speech. If anyone has any suggestions as to what Lotus may come up with, I’d be grateful if you could post them… [image]http://www.exiges.com/ubb/NonCGI/images/icons/wink.gif[/image]Cheers,T

5

Looking at it from a Lotus point of view the best they (both Lotus and JCT) can say is:1. Not their problem go away;2. They will give you a discount on a new car (anywhere up to cost price); or3. They will give you a sum of money as compensation (although you will never know what the true value of this is until you sell your car);

6

Hi Tony, sorry for the delay in getting back to you. Nasty scratches! [image]http://www.exiges.com/ubb/NonCGI/images/icons/frown.gif[/image] Basically, Steve’s right. If you try to polish the scratches out you will take the finish off the aluminium, so that’s a non-starter. We did have a car come in recently with a badly scratched tub that we painted using a guy that we know who specialises in matching and painting small localised areas. To be honest, we were a bit sceptical at first, but the tub in question was so badly scratched (not by us I hasten to add!) that we thought we’d risk it. It turned out much better than we expected, and was hardly noticeable; AFAIK it�s still intact and looking good to this day. [image]http://www.exiges.com/ubb/NonCGI/images/icons/smile.gif[/image] I think that this may well be the only way forward, apart from changing the chassis that is!

7

Cheers guys. [image]http://www.exiges.com/ubb/NonCGI/images/icons/wink.gif[/image]I’ll wait and see what Lotus/JCT say… [image]http://www.exiges.com/ubb/NonCGI/images/icons/rolleyes.gif[/image]