Used Lotus Elise review and buying guide (2000 to 2011): which one to buy and what to check

Which used Lotus Elise should you buy?

Buy the Elise with the cleanest chassis, not the newest or the lowest mileage, because the aluminium tub can't be repaired. Where steel suspension parts bolt to it, wet and salty roads set off corrosion that eats the mounting points. Once that's gone too far the car's finished, since a new chassis costs several times what the car's worth, so one that's been kept off salted winter roads is the one to have.

There's no reason to pick an S1 over an S2 on reliability: the heater fan resistor trouble hits both, and the 1,796cc Rover K Series engine's gasket weakness applies to any car fitted with it. So don't chase a particular year across the 2000 to 2011 run. Choose on chassis condition first and engine paperwork second, and on a K Series car favour the one with receipts for head gasket work.

Which Elise engines and gearboxes are the safe choices?

The 1,796cc Rover K Series is the Elise's weakest point. Its inlet manifold gasket is heated by the coolant, and when that gasket goes it leads on to head gasket failure. The cylinder bore liners can drop as well. Don't buy a K Series car without invoices showing what's been done to the head and gaskets, and don't settle for a seller's word on it.

Nothing's been flagged about the gearbox, so there's no reason to favour or avoid one on that score, though that's a gap in what's known rather than a clean bill of health. It puts the engine decision squarely on paperwork: an invoice naming the gasket work counts for more than a low mileage, and a car with none should be treated as one where the job's still to come.

What should you check when viewing a used Elise?

Get underneath and look hard at where the steel suspension wishbones, and the steel washers that set castor and camber, meet the aluminium mounting points. Corrosion eating into the aluminium there is what kills these cars. Lotus requires its dealers to coat steel wherever it touches aluminium, so ask whether that's been kept up, and be very wary of a car that's obviously done winters on salted roads.

Look the car over for damage from a track day off, paying most attention to the chassis. Then run the heater fan through every speed. The resistor box that controls it sits low behind the fan unit, often in standing water on a car that's used daily, and failures are common. Reaching it means taking the front clamshell off, so a tiny part turns into a long labour job.

Ask for proof that a 2002 recall was carried out on the rear suspension toe links, whose threads weren't up to standard and could work loose, upsetting the car's stability. Another 2002 recall, which doesn't say which Lotus models it covered, checked 99 cars for brake caliper bolt holes that hadn't been threaded all the way and replaced any faulty calipers. Ask the seller whether it applied and, if so, for the paperwork.

Paste the advert into the free check and it runs these against the listing, the MOT history and the DVLA record before you travel.

What does a used Lotus Elise cost to run?