Cheap re-map, insurance nightmare?

[superman84]

The insurance company will never know. I wrote off a car which had been remapped and it wasn't picked up in the inspection. The dealer won't know its been remapped either when you hand it back.

[McSam]

PKLD said:

That's encouraging - looking at it a bit more I think I would be getting a 20% increase (200 to 240) so within reasonable premium I hope!

There's no reason why you can't go on your insurer's website and get some quotes, play around with it and see what results you get

As has been said, I don't think an insurer would ever pick it up, particularly if you've given them no reason to be inspecting the car thoroughly - I don't know if they'd even have the tools to tell, never mind wasting time testing? - so I'm not sure I'd even declare it myself.

Not to condone such practice, of course.

[MonkeyBusiness]

superman84 said:

The insurance company will never know. I wrote off a car which had been remapped and it wasn't picked up in the inspection. The dealer won't know its been remapped either when you hand it back.

I'm not so sure about that. I had quite an aggressive map (to me anyway) put on by Celtic Tuning. It was ALOT quicker than stock.

Surely a dealer will know instantly if a car has had a remap before its even out of 2nd gear. They will have driven enough of the model to know something is amiss.

Would plugging it into a laptop not show bigger boost levels for example?

Edit to add - my insurance went up £40.

[ZOLLAR]

Op,

Engine chipped producing power increase up to 25% is acceptable but increase on audi TT fsi can vary between £300-£450 (those are rough amounts as your personal details may have different affect on increase).

Anything over a 26% power increase is pretty much a straight decline.

HTH.

[MonkeyBusiness]

ZOLLAR said:

Anything over a 26% power increase is pretty much a straight decline.

I might have just made this up but I seem to remember A-Plan telling me that 200bhp was the 'magic number'.

[PKLD]

ZOLLAR said:

Op,

Engine chipped producing power increase up to 25% is acceptable but increase on audi TT fsi can vary between £300-£450 (those are rough amounts as your personal details may have different affect on increase).

Anything over a 26% power increase is pretty much a straight decline.

HTH.

Thanks for the info! Now a bit confused as to how they would check the % increase? I don't see them road rolling to check so do they go on what id claimed or proven

i.e one tuner says than you can get a 30% increase the other says 20% increase - yet in truth they're probably the same.

Might take me chances and phone the call centre for a laugh

[ZOLLAR]

PKLD said:

ZOLLAR said:

Op,

Engine chipped producing power increase up to 25% is acceptable but increase on audi TT fsi can vary between £300-£450 (those are rough amounts as your personal details may have different affect on increase).

Anything over a 26% power increase is pretty much a straight decline.

HTH.

Thanks for the info! Now a bit confused as to how they would check the % increase? I don't see them road rolling to check so do they go on what id claimed or proven

i.e one tuner says than you can get a 30% increase the other says 20% increase - yet in truth they're probably the same.

Might take me chances and phone the call centre for a laugh

Whether they check on not will depend on what happens in an accident and what caused it, as R1 Loon said if its a small bump then they probably won't bother if its a high speed crash and possible street racing then the insurer will likely go through the whole car centimetre by centimetre.
But what you need to think about is "is the risk worth it?" if you lie then have a big crash there is a chance you can become liable for costs.
As I said anything up to 25% should be ok

HTH

[B.J.W]

superman84 said:

The insurance company will never know. I wrote off a car which had been remapped and it wasn't picked up in the inspection. The dealer won't know its been remapped either when you hand it back.

Is this correct with all marques?

As mentioned earlier, pretty certain that Audi have diagnostics that can say if the ECU has been altered. Not 100% sure, but I have heard that the same applies to BMW and Mercedes as well?

[Balmoral Green]

Regarding my own company car.

No problem with my employer.
No problem with our insurers.
No problem with my dealer (any warranty issues are at my risk, so what's it got to do with them?)

But the lease company said no, which is a shame as bearing in mind any warranty issues are at my risk, so what's it got to do with them?

[DamianBPhoto]

I was using Confused last night just to get a blanket overvue of what I am expecting to pay and I put in all the details with uprated brakes and ECU remap and Admiral where the cheapest for it!

This I find weird because Admiral refuse to entertain the mod but their sister company elephant, who do, didn't even appear on the list!

[carmonk]

DamianBPhoto said:

I was using Confused last night just to get a blanket overvue of what I am expecting to pay and I put in all the details with uprated brakes and ECU remap and Admiral where the cheapest for it!

This I find weird because Admiral refuse to entertain the mod but their sister company elephant, who do, didn't even appear on the list!

Elephant charge like... well, an elephant, when it comes to mods. Can't recall the exact figure but I seem to remember about £10 per extra BHP. That said, they've always been the cheapest by a large margin for standard performance cars.

[Patrick Bateman]

carmonk said:

Elephant charge like... well, an elephant, when it comes to mods. Can't recall the exact figure but I seem to remember about £10 per extra BHP. That said, they've always been the cheapest by a large margin for standard performance cars.

There is very little between Admiral, Elephant and Bell.

Quotes from Admiral for a 10-25% performance chip were about £900 in my case and up to about £915/920 for the other 2.

All 3 were the cheapest by a country mile though.

[PKLD]

Patrick Bateman said:

Quotes from Admiral for a 10-25% performance chip were about £900 in my case and up to about £915/920 for the other 2.

I take it that those are the total cost for the premium not just the addition for the mods?

[DamianBPhoto]

So do Admiral do mods now? Because when I asked when I first got my vRS they said no, hence why I moved to Elephant because when I planned to get the mod done they would insure it.

Well my renewal quote form elephant was £1024, From adimral it was £750 with the mod applied. With out it, it was £680!

A couple of insurance questions, sorry to go very slighlty off topic...

But what mods lower your car insurance? Because last time around I tried, uprated brakes dropped my quote by £100 now they increase it by £30+

Also my renewal is due in march, I passed in may 2007. Would I be able to get away with saying I have been driving for 5 years rather than 4? £100 difference.

[matts4]

The question is normally how long have you held a licence, not what type. So you should be ok

[ZOLLAR]

matts4 said:

The question is normally how long have you held a licence, not what type. So you should be ok

They are likely to ask how long have you held a full licence rather than how long have you had a licence.

[tyranical]

Lol at people not believing the remap potential of some cars.

My ibiza FR is exactly the same engine etc as the cupra, the cupra standard runs 170 and remaps to 215... the FR runs 150 standard, remaps to 215 same as the cupra. +65hp for 300 quid, bargain.

The 2.0tfsi cupra remaps to over 300bhp.

People who have never had remaps on turbo'ed cars never believe the hype but its like buying a new car seriously, it makes that much difference.

[Herman Toothrot]

AlpineWhite said:

I don't think ignorance counts as a defence. And when I last took out a policy, it asked "has the car been modified or altered", as opposed to "have you modified or altered the car".

Yes, they have stated to be arsey about the wording. I always replied "no, to the best of my knowledge the car has not been modified", when I've not been entirely sure on if say the VW alloys on the 10 year old VW were the ones the car came with, an option or other model in the range a prevous owner fitted. I'm not a VAG nerd so wouldn't know. Not been a problem and I have figured covered myself should they not be the ones the car came with. The most recent purchase an 11 year old Audi I said the same and they refused to complete the cover, the said yes they did expect me to know 100% is the car was modified or not. PITA, hung up called back and said not modified - 2 months into ownership when I'd learnt a bit more about the car I have discovered the 17" Audi 5 spoke on it are actually not standard they should be 16" 5 spokes every other A6 I see has them fitted.

[EvoSlayer]

B.J.W said:

superman84 said:

The insurance company will never know. I wrote off a car which had been remapped and it wasn't picked up in the inspection. The dealer won't know its been remapped either when you hand it back.

Is this correct with all marques?As mentioned earlier, pretty certain that Audi have diagnostics that can say if the ECU has been altered. Not 100% sure, but I have heard that the same applies to BMW and Mercedes as well?

Most modern ecu's will log maximum revs, overrevs, maximum boost, engine hours, average speed yadda yadda and will have some form of flash counter. In other words it can not only be ascertained if the car has been re-flashed but how many times, including restoring factory defaults and using the time stamp (engine hours) can calculate roughly when it was done using average mph for example.If they can be bothered to look, they WILL know, do not be deluded.

Edited by EvoSlayer on Wednesday 23 February 06:09

[matts4]

ZOLLAR said:

They are likely to ask how long have you held a full licence rather than how long have you had a licence.

Maybe some, I was quoting the largest insurer in the UK. (they just ask how long a licence has been held and accept provisional entitlement within that period)