Spontaneous Control Arm Failure
Just a heads up for all you Elise and Exige owners, a new potential problem is surfacing that everyone should watch out for. There have been several failures of the rear suspension due to loosening bolts; some are the hub carrier bolts, some failures are the inside upper control arm bolts loosening. Until this is figured out for sure, it’d be wise to check the torque of all these fasteners on your car before driving it anywhere. You can read more about it in this thread over at EliseTalk.
What’s kinda scary are rumors that Lotus made a change at some point (’07, I think the rumor goes), to replace the control arm bolts with one of a higher grade. Supposedly, it’s something that’ll be retrofitted to older models ‘as needed’, which is kinda scary as they begin to get out of warranty later this year (the early ones, at least), at which point issues like this are not likely to be covered.