This has happened to me a few times now. I’ve used the car all week to get to work and been for a long drive on Saturday morning. When I tried to start the car up last night though (Sunday), the engine turned over but it wouldn’t fire. When the engine is turning over it doesn’t feel sluggish at all, but if I jump start the car it will fire up after a few attempts.
It has been into a couple of different specialists and everything seems to be working as it should. The battery is three months old and the alternator is working fine. I have a kill switch on the car that I use whenever it is parked up as well.
Had a similar one-off problem before setting out to Le Mans Classic. Didn’t try to jump start but auto electrician plugged in his battery (presumably a heavy duty job) and turned it over until it started.His diagnostic equipment showed a fault code that a Lotus dealer said was “vehicle sensor”.
The electrician’s theory was that the engine had not been turning over fast enough to trigger the crank sensor.
If that’s gibber, one of the experts on here will correct me soon enough.
All I know is that it started and gave no further trouble for over 1300 miles. Thank God!
Best of luck.
Hi Thommo, thanks for replying! Unfortunately it has happenned quite a few times before. It also seems to be getting more frequent
I got home last night and tried to start it, but the problem had come back already…less than 24 hours after using it last. After one very quick attempt to bump start it (unsuccessfully), I turn the key for one last try and it fires up on the button. Does this suggest the problem isn’t the battery at all? Could it be linked in with the kill switch?
If that means its the Cartek one, which I think they are, then yes there is a high probability it is the kill switch. The old style cartek kill switches(by old I mean anything more than about 12 months) are really really unreliable. In the LOT series 100% of the old style ones failed, and about half of the grid were running them, me included. It is an easy upgrade to the new style cartek one which has been pretty much 100% reliable.
Apparantly the S1 has this as a gremlin… no spark = no start. Mine kept on blowing the 1.5A fuse to a 3A fuse was fitted… no more probs… guessing a transient electrical spike causes this so the 3A is ‘safe’!
Does the lever operate a cable to kill the elect power? The cut-off Sean refers to (Cartek) is “electronic” in operation, & therefore does not use a cable.
I have known instances of the cable operated jobbies malfunctioning at the battery end.
It looks like it connects to a box above the battery with MTA stamped on it. This is connected to another box with Siemens stamped on it, and this in turn runs to the battery. It doesn’t look like a very neat installation to be honest!
That looks exactly like the “Motorsport cutout” as detailed in the service manual. However in the book it indicates a cable attached to the switch box.
Exactly how can you turn switch off from outside ? - I doubt you can without the cable … so this must be the motorport version ?
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