Are cars with modifications legal to be on the road
Discussion
Having replied to a thread where it was stated that someone had a friendly MOT centre who may turn a blind eye to an exhaust system where the cats had been deleted, it was stated that if the insurance companies were to find out say after an accident, the car may not be covered.
That kind of alludes to the fact that any cars that have had their cats removed may not be insured?
Surely this cannot be right as if it was the case, the owners must have a right to sue the garages that would be deemed to have knowingly carried out work that makes the cars illegal.
I was thinking of having work done after hearing about cat ingestion but this has really made me think twice about it.
Do you have to sign away your rights when mods are done as if not this probably leaves the garages liable?
That kind of alludes to the fact that any cars that have had their cats removed may not be insured?
Surely this cannot be right as if it was the case, the owners must have a right to sue the garages that would be deemed to have knowingly carried out work that makes the cars illegal.
I was thinking of having work done after hearing about cat ingestion but this has really made me think twice about it.
Do you have to sign away your rights when mods are done as if not this probably leaves the garages liable?
Stonic said:
As previously said. Declare the mods to your insurance company. I went the full BR upgrade route a few years back and it's fully declared on the insurance policy. I paid a tad extra but I do not see how any claim could then be disputed.
Probably many mods are not declared because warranty then becomes an issue?Didn't Rob have issues with warranty due to the fact he had modified his car?
One of my mates had a rear cat job and AM were refusing to replace his blown engine at first - looks like its lose lose for the guy who wants a bit more whilst still retaining a warranty.
It would be good if the garages could offer their own warranty, if they did i would dump my manifolds for ones that didn't have cats anywhere near the heads.
BamfordMike said:
AMDBSTony said:
One of my mates had a rear cat job and AM were refusing to replace his blown engine at first - looks like its lose lose for the guy who wants a bit more whilst still retaining a warranty.
It would be good if the garages could offer their own warranty, if they did i would dump my manifolds for ones that didn't have cats anywhere near the heads.
interesting story, was your friends car v8 or v12, what was eng failure? you say at first, so did engine get fixed under warranty after all?It would be good if the garages could offer their own warranty, if they did i would dump my manifolds for ones that didn't have cats anywhere near the heads.
why would you expect a garage to fit an exhaust then issue a warranty for base engine? Lets use the 4.3L as an example. A ported spec ran in race cars at 420 bhp for countless n24 races without durability problems compared std 380 bhp motor. Therefore stands to reason a bolt on exhaust that increases power to 420 is not pushing the envelope far enough that should anything happen to base engine, it was caused by exhaust. Similarly, the am power upgrade is 400 bhp (increasing from 380) on same base engine. So why would any 200 cell cat supplier taking power to same level issue base engine warranty with cat? Unless the application of the cat (lets say poor ecu remap) caused the failure, if cat disintegrated and sucked in by engine i can understand repair being levied against cat supplier, but the question will be why did cat fail? Fault with cat or misfire (which is out of control of cat supplier).
i think everybody knows this already, but if the reassuring hug from a warranty policy keeps ownership smile going, then don't do anything to compromise. But if a power / driveability improvement is what is needed to keep smile going in ownership, guys make that change and warranty isn't their consideration. I have the friendship of about 200 guys who modified exhaust, not one of them is the lose, lose you speak of, where an engine claim was even needed but not granted. There was a case of clutch bearing failure on modified clutch, but clearly the factory could not honour that claim even though owner thought they should, bizarrely... I think his rationale was that because clutch bearing failure is reasonably common, even though he had modified clutch, his claim should be upheld. In that case he wanted the car repaired overnight and the dealer network could not do that, he had the job done somewhere that could, then expected the factory to reimburse the cost of part. I leave it to you if that is a rational approach!!!
The car in question was a 2012 DBS and was 2 months or so inside its warranty with AM. At first they said that they would not honour the warranty but then gave in and replaced the engine at a cost of around £25,000.
I don't know why you have launched into specifics about race cams and all that stuff, I know jack s
t about any of that and to be honest am not really bothered about it. I drive them, break them and someone else fixes them.....simples. All I was saying was that if a warranty company can offer a warranty then why cant anyone else?
I would have thought that if an expert can put up a reasonable argument as to why any work that they have done would not allow anyone to wriggle, for example if you changed the back lights it could hardly be attributed to the engine overheating, then this may be a way of facilitating those who want those specific mods and the warranty?
If for example a garage said that if they changed the exhaust manifolds on my V12 and then the engine blew up for whatever reason, that is one scenario and I would have to take the pill and stand the cost as it would not be warrantied. If on the other hand the garage gave me the comfort of saying that they would insure me against this as whatever failure could not be caused by work they have done and is backed up by their expert knowledge, why wouldn't I have the work done?
I think that if anyone is confident in anything that they do that would not be of risk to the owner or the detriment of the car, say a rear cat delete on a V12 as an example, surely it would be a good business proposition for anyone to offer that security limited to the work done? Obviously if the diff fell of its mounts after the spark plugs had been changed it wouldn't be covered, why would it be? On the other hand if the back lights were changed and one fell out, I would expect it to be covered.
I think that this was why AM conceded as my mate had his rear cats removed and had AM approved QS pipes instead - there was a real argument to state that the cat removal had nothing to do with why the engine blew. I may be wrong on this but it is the opinion of a few so maybe there is merit in it - who knows?
Anyway, the thread isn't about defending anything or berating anyone. I was merely just asking if cars were legal if they had work done that means they are not in line with manufacturers spec and therefore should fail an MOT - this would theoretically render them not roadworthy and as a result would not have insurance.
Hopefully there aren't many that fall into this category as it could prove extremely costly in more ways than one!
Speculatore said:
However, if you just put your car in for a manifold change I don't think they offer the same 'whole car' warranty. I suppose makes sense as someone could take their ageing high mileage car, spend a small sum on a manifold and come away with a base engine warranty.
It is a good business model for then as well as it virtually guarantees that they get the continued custom of my car being serviced every year and it gives me peace of mind knowing the the whole car has a high standard of warranty cover.
I was only eluding to anyone putting a warranty on what they had done. If a 100K engine holed a piston after manifolds were fit, that same expert could prove it had nothing to do with the work they had done which would be a fact. If however the manifold came off and melted the wiring (an impossibility I know but humour me) then this would be backed up under that limited specific warranty.It is a good business model for then as well as it virtually guarantees that they get the continued custom of my car being serviced every year and it gives me peace of mind knowing the the whole car has a high standard of warranty cover.
I ask that nobody takes out of context what I am trying to say here - hopefully you get the idea of what I mean.
As for servicing I am not being specific about any garage as its just an idea that may entice one into having mods work done.
If any garage offered this kind of additional guarantee, of course the car would still be serviced, it has to be to keep its full AMSH in order to maintain its warranty.
RichB said:
AMDBSTony said:
I was only eluding to anyone putting a warranty on what they had done..
It might elude you why they wouldn't do this but that's not what you were alluding to. 
I asked a genuine question.......don't need and don't appreciate english lessons from you thanks.
Lets drop the sarcasm! - spell checker is cruel.
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