Hi,

I'm getting my new octavia in about a months time and having plumped for a 1.8 L&K over the VRS, I kept thinking if i'd miss the power. Having spoken to a few tuners I know as well as the dealer who can tweak it via Revo, I now know it can be upped to about 190bhp fairly easily just with a remap and no mechanical jiggery pokery. To be honest, having thought long and hard, i now have no real intention to do this until the warranty is up as I don't want to risk anything happening to invalidate the warranty and kick me in the nuts, but the thing I then wondered as a consequence was...

...if you DO remap your car but DON'T tell your insurance company, in the event of you having an accident, how the hell are they ever gonna know it's had anything done to it if all you're doing is messing around with the tiny, weeny chip??!

Presumably, your car will be fecked so they can't do rolling tests, and if it's not, do they REALLY go looking into it that deeply cos surely they'd have to strip the engine to check you haven't put cams, uprated chargers, etc in to make it worthwhile ad that's gotta take up a lot of time and mone, i'd have thought?

Anyone from an insurance company reading this who can answer cos i'd be really interested to hear how they would play that?!

:confused:

Cheers,

Matt

p.s. I believe i'm legally required to say the following:

kids, I don't try this at home!

They'd never know and would never check. Period.

That's my personal opinion as well, but it's a bit of a sticky wicket i'd have thought.

I bet there'll be a lot of nervous nerys' out there who tell their IC absolutely everything, even down to using BP Ultima over regular fuel as well though!

They'd never know and would never check. Period.

.......is the wrong answer.

It's unlikely that they would ever bother to check , but it's not impossible and if they do look , they can find out.

That arguement is ok if you total your car, but if they send it off to repair it and ask for an engineers report before during or after ........................ you pays your money and takes your chance

They'd never know and would never check. Period.

You sure on that ? I can name two people who have had there car's ecu's removed and checked after a hefty accident. With one IC not paying out due to quote "differences with the claimants ecu software compared to a manufacturer's supplied example".

Fair enough, but if you smash your car and get the chance to get it repaired, YOU get the say on who you send it to to do the work, you don't have to send it to who they want: Your car, your choice. Just screw your loaf and send it someone to you know.

Trust me, I know very well about that fact!

Fair enough, but if you smash your car and get the chance to get it repaired, YOU get the say on who you send it to to do the work, you don't have to send it to who they want: Your car, your choice. Just screw your loaf and send it someone to you know.

Trust me, I know very well about that fact!

I'm sorry but, I would disagree. The insurance company will and can "have a say" on where it goes for repair, they would be paying the bill in the end.

You sure on that ? I can name two people who have had there car's ecu's removed and checked after a hefty accident. With one IC not paying out due to quote "differences with the claimants ecu software compared to a manufacturer's supplied example".

well if that's the case, then you simply say "I didn't know anything about it"; and let's face it how could you be expected to know if you didn't do it yourself?

Having seen quite a few insurnce assessors at work, I seriously doubt they would even consider having the car checked for remaps, unless it's advertised with "go faster" stickers and stripes

lol your choice... your money.

I reckon it is a gamble not worth taking if it is wrecked and they found out it was chipped or any mod for that matter then it gives them the right to walk away, Which they will do shop around there are companies that will cover you, £40 or £50 extra is peanuts if you look at what it would cost to replace a total write off, Plus if someone was killed you could have a police inspection on your vehicle,

Go ahead, but as several members have already found out anyone can read a web forum, warrenty claims have been voided etc etc. i doubt on a new car you could claim Skoda delivered your car ready remapped and didn't tell you.

Yeah, i agree with postmanpat, if you bought a second hand car you might be able to get away with it but if you're the only ownere, there's no way you could try and wangle that you didn't know it had been tweaked.

And, once again, I disagree with Auroan as i'm speaking from recent experience. My car was hit to the tune of £2k worth of respraying and repairs and about the same in compensation and both mine AND the other guys insurance company (Zurich: very pleasant company to deal with, very impressed)said I could take it to WHOEVER I wanted, although the other guys IC did say they had preferred specialists if I wanted to use them.

Also, my mate hit a kerb at about 50 in his BMW M3 and his insurance company wanted to send it to their own specalists. He was a bit dubious as they appeared to be monkeys, saying that the steering and suspension were okay, it was only superficial. He took it to two other 'preferred companies' who were equally as glib or wouldn't give him a courtesy car even though it was in his policy. In the end, he argued that it was his insurance which he'd paid for, his car, and he wanted to get it done properly by BMW. His IC couldn't say no to him and ended up paying about 2-3 times more than if he'd taken it to the other idiots. Just as well in the end as within about 5 minutes, they diagnosed both steering and suspension was twisted, and they'd be happy to send the parts to his IC if they wanted professional independant analysis to back that up. IC paid up, he got the work done properly at where he chose to, point proven.:P

They're paying the bill, but it's your policy and you've CHOSEN to go with them and paid YOUR money. The customer is always right!

It doesn't matter where the car goes for fixing, if the IC request a report on the ecu then they will get one. Unfortunately you can't decide before hand on the type/ severity of an accident you may have and how the IC will react. I am sure there will be situations where they require this details dependant. If you want to take a chance that t won't happen to you then that is your privalage.

yeah, perhaps i'm just thinking of the past when it was possible to get an MOT even when the car was, shall we say, not quite roadworthy? If you 'know' the right people then there's always a way round fiddling a required report, but to be honest, as has already been said, you may only have to add £30-40 on your policy just by declaring it. That, and it's also peace of mind.

They'd never know and would never check. Period.

I know an insurance assessor who specifically did check for Modifications on a car, but to be fair the kid was apparantly driving like a twot and had given them every reason to try and get out of the claim.

If they wanted to look they would easily find out that you have by some simple looking at the flash chip in the ECU, assuming it is still in one piece.

Not to mention risking voiding your Skoda Warranty.

These days IC's will do anything to get out of a claim, will request it's inspected at one of their prefered repairers and specifically go through the motions to catch you out.

I wouldnt if you fancy recouping your £18k *should* you be involved in an accident, regardless of fault.

So you've forked out £18,000 for a car and you're worried about the insurance going up a bit because of a remap? If you do anything to that will increase the performance of a car, declare it. If you don't, you probably won't get a payout in the event of an accident. I don't know about you, but I'm not prepared to run a risk like that - hence not having a remap until my next birthday (25 so insurance will drop, having a remap will raise it to about what I pay now).

As someone who use to work in the insurance idustry, I will add my tupennce worth.

Insurance companies have there own in-house engineers who will go an inspect a car if there is anything suspicious at all. This will be done whether the car is at an "approved" repairer or at a garage of the customers choice.

Circumstances were they will do their own inspection include -

Young drivers

"hot hatches"

big claims

a combination of the above were it is a single vehicle shunt.

They have a duty to do this - modded cars paying incorrect premiums are fraud and payouts from these cost the ordinary, honest motorist in increased premiums.

the IC can and will void insurance if anything dodgy is found!

Yeah, that makes perfect sense. I can understand that they might want to look at it themselves regardless of where you take it, but I'll reitterate my point that you don't necessarily have to take it to be repaired where the IC wants you to. They want to save money/you want the best job you can get.

Bless, I remember when I was looking forward to turning 25 so my insurance would hopefully go down. In the end, it didn't cos I was and am still running a modded G60 with agreed value insurance so the premium was always a bit high.

Its not just the insurance company not paying out the Police can then do you for no insurance and FRAUD (pecuniary advantage) as a friend of mine found out (only got a caution this time though but cost him his job with the MOD)

Simon

Yeah, that makes perfect sense. I can understand that they might want to look at it themselves regardless of where you take it, but I'll reitterate my point that you don't necessarily have to take it to be repaired where the IC wants you to.

The IC will still retain, and exercise, a right to have the vehicle inspected by their own engineer, no matter where it goes for repair.

They're paying out for it so they're perfectly entitled to check out the work and any parts, I guess.

They usually send out a form you have to sign saying you're happy with work done so if they DID want to force you into going to one of their guys, you could always say you weren't happy. Not worth it to them in the long run.

surely get something like a blue fin and if you totalled the car, restore it the original map

now fair enough i know there's situations where if you totalled the car you might well be unconscious but if that's the case i think id rather just be glad to be alive than bothered about my car