As soon as I bought it from a second hand dealer, I heard funny noises from the undercarriage and the steering did not feel right. I took it to a Lotus dealer to fix and spend £3000 on it, including new steering rack, 4 new tires, new suspension, fixing lots of bolts, just to make it work as new. One very hot day after driving solidly for an hour the gearstick would just not shift gears. AA came and after a tow to the garage, they confirmed it was the red clutch hose (or something similar, I'm not sure what its called) which is apparently very common. Lots of lotus Elise's simply can't change gears unless they fix that.
I loved this car. It was a bueaty, appart from the financial apsect, but then again I could have bought a car that was thrashed in the past.
Looks like you did buy a thrashed one!!!
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