Thinking about buying an Elise

[amehtam56]

Hello -

I lived in the UK for about 3 years on a job assignment and fell in love with the Elise. Now that I am back in NA I am considering buying one and I was hoping to get some advice.

1. I am 6'3" and about 216 lbs. Will the car be too tight for me?
2. I live in Canada but am planning on buying and importing the car from the US. I have reviewed the Customs website for Canada so I am semi familiar with the procedure. I see there was only one limited recall that I have to ensure is complete. Any other advice on importing it?
3. How is the reliability? The car that I am looking at is a 2005. I understand that the engine is the same as a Celica GT-S. What about the rest of the car? Will I have to take it some where special for regular maintenance (oil changes etc)?

Any help would be greatly apprieciated.

Thanks

[Vampyre]

You should fit in the car, that should not be a problem, but you are not able to import a US Elise/Exige into Canada.

Reliability has been fine from what I have read and seen, you will need to take the car to a lotus dealer and have the car serviced at various intervals, to keep the warranty up.

But with a 2005 model the warranty will be done, and you can do most of the stuff yourself like oil and fluid changes and Brake pad changes are not too hard.

Toyota commissioned Yamaha to design the 2ZZ-GE Engine, Also the tuning is done by lotus, so this is not the same engine setup / tune as the Celica GTS