Kelvedon

[dermotbell]

I had a bad experience here and found them very expensive. The owner is was not responsive to questions that doubted their incorrect diagnosis.

Parts always more expensive than others and I initially put up with this as I thought they knew what they were doing.

[Enright]

Blimey that's a first.
While I don't doubt your sincerety Dermot, I'm conscious that a bad headline always grabs more attention than a good one.
Kelvedon have in the past had a good reputation in the Lotus community in general, and here too.
In fact the proprietor (Pat Thomas) gave a long talk and slideshow all about the early development of the Elan at the Stoneleigh parts fair a couple of years ago. Stoneleigh is, after Donington, the second biggest event of the year, and that year the Elan M100 was the featured car.
Kelvedon may not be the cheapest, but they are acknowledged as knowing what they are doing.
So I have to ask - what did they get wrong?

[Paul.P]

Neil, i used to use Kelvedon before GST, & here is the reason i moved, i payed him over 3k in 6 mnths for work on whitey, so expected good service, but after they fitted new front discs & ceramic pads i drove the car home to find the brakes clunked badly when reversing into driveway. I rang them & got told all M100's did that ( mine didn't before it went in ! ), it subsequently transpired he had left some rubber O rings ( or something like that ) out from the brakes, which wore the sliders out prematurely. Also, when i had the retrim done, they said they would have the steering wheel done in green & yellow, yet when it arrived back it was all green, apparantly Pat Thomas knew, but forgot to inform me. Now i paid £1400 for that, & expected better, & when i mentioned it, they wern't bothered , needless to say, i havn't been back since.

[ailwyn]

I have come across this before, a place gets a good rep, and it goes to their head, and service starts to slide.

Best way to combat poor service is to name & shame, so good on you! Even better if you then call them up and tell them you've posted a bad review

[Paul.P]

Best way i could think of showing my displeasure, was to take my business elswhere, & he lost a lot of business when i rebuilt Blacky. I havn't really said much before, because i might of just been unlucky, but i have heard quite a few stories over the last couple of years, & feel others should know my experiences.

[Enright]

Can't say fairer than that. I only hope that one day you get someone from there drooling over Blacky and get the chance to tell them why they missed out on all that business.

And I'd feel like doing the same as Ailwyn suggests.

[dermotbell]

On the minor side, when I had a gasket rebuild on the Elan they didn't tighten up all the pipes on the turbo and the cover for the spark plugs.

The major problem I had was with my Elite.

It failed an MOT for emissions and so I took it to Pat Thomas as he is the closest Lotus garage. His mechanics diagnosed a blown piston ring.

This seemed incredibly unlucky as the engine had just had a rebuild 20k ago by Agra in Dundee.

PT quoted a min of 3k plus VAT for the rebuild, or "I have a very nice Excel for 6k". Having just had the gearbox rebuilt by him (at great expense) I wasn't too keen on either option.

I took her home to think about it. I must say that on the day I took her for the MOT she seemed to be running a bit rough, but it was a short run to the garage and so I thought she was just cold.

After a a few weeks my Dad found a guy near Chester who was selling a 907 engine. Now my car has the 912 which is worth quite a bit more than a 907 albeit not with a blown piston ring.

After some time we negotiated that he would (in his spare time) rebuild a 907 to suit my car and in return he could have the 912.

Because he is an airline pilot and was doing the rebuild in his spare time this took considerably longer than planned. Oh, and he has done many rebuilds before so new what he was doing. During this time I started to question the diagnosis so got myself a compression tester and checked the pistons. My Dad and I could not find one that was down. When we asked PT he said that they didn't do a compression test but measured the air escaping at the bottom end and that you could make piston compression tests read whatever you like if you turned the engine over long enough. Well to me and my Dad this seemed against the laws of physics. I know they may not be deadly accurate but if all 4 read the same..........

In Scotland near where my Dad lives there is a guy called Mike Stewart who runs a small garage and races 907/912 based cars amongst others. He seemed sceptical of the diagnosis and so I got the Elite transported up to him in Errol. He had diagnosed the problem in 5 mins and had it running sweetly inside 30 mins.

There were 2 problems:

- one of the carbs was quite out and so no.1 piston was getting almost no petrol.
- The timing was out as the cam belt tensioner had come loose and jumped 2 cogs (luckily i got away with out any damage)

Because the car had effectly been sitting for a year (thanks to PT) it needed a few other items sorted but sailed through the MOT.

Mike quite often races in the same events as PT and said he was looking forward to seeing him.

When we told PT of the out come he was dismissive and said anyone could make mistakes. He didn't see why I should be due any refund on the £80 he charged for the diagnosis, never mind the cost of transporting the car to Scotland or the effort that was put into the rebuild of the 907 engine (now complete and with no car to go into). I felt very bad when I broke the news that I no longer needed the engine, fortunately he was very good about it. My engine rebuilder did mention a few other tails of PT and that at many seminars he had seen of PT that he would often answer tech questions by saying "oh, bring it to us and we'll sort it"

Now I know a lot of people phone PT for help and he does spend long periods on the phone, but I was shocked by his attitude more than anything when we put the correct diagnosis to him.

I won't be going back.

[Dico]

Also, when i had the retrim done, they said they would have the steering wheel done in green & yellow, yet when it arrived back it was all green

Phew, that was lucky!

[Gary]