Picking my new VRS petrol up this week, at last, and already have it booked in for a remap. Have had cars remapped in the past so know the legality of telling insurance / voiding waranty etc etc.

I was just wondering has anyone out there with a remap actually ever told their insurance company (I always do of course !!!!!!!) and what hapened to your insurance premiums as a result.

Has anyone ever crashed their remapped motor, and if so did the insurance find out.

Has anyone had bother getting things fixed under Skoda waranty due to having a remap. I have told my dealer my plans and he seems brand new about it, basically said he has more to worry about than checking ECU maps when a car goes wrong.

Ant thoughts commenys are welcome.

Told mine when I got my mk1 remapped, cost about £40 extra for the year but I know they can't wriggle out of a claim for it.

Yes, I always tell my insurance co. At the moment I am with Chris Knott and they apply a mild increase to the policy (I reckon its about 12%). My Revo remap was actually done by a Skoda dealer and they seemed fairly relaxed with regard to warranty, although I suspect if there is a failure directly attributable to the remap then you would be on your own.

Picking my new VRS petrol up this week, at last, and already have it booked in for a remap. Have had cars remapped in the past so know the legality of telling insurance / voiding waranty etc etc.

I was just wondering has anyone out there with a remap actually ever told their insurance company (I always do of course !!!!!!!) and what hapened to your insurance premiums as a result.

Has anyone ever crashed their remapped motor, and if so did the insurance find out.

Has anyone had bother getting things fixed under Skoda waranty due to having a remap. I have told my dealer my plans and he seems brand new about it, basically said he has more to worry about than checking ECU maps when a car goes wrong.

Ant thoughts commenys are welcome.

Tell your Insurance.....thats a no brainer as they will try anything to avoid paying out. Infact a work colleague has just had to go to court due to Hastings Direct refusing a claim on the basis her car had an undeclared modification, 6 vinyl flowers stuck to the side!!!

With regards the warranty, remaps are detectable so don't think the dealers will miss them. However, unless a repair needs to be done as a direct result of any modifications, then I don't see how they can refuse, but check the small print mate.

HTH, Lee

I'm not quite sure why you're asking the question bearing in mind "you always do it anyway", unless you are risking not doing......

..........or is just my misinterpretation ?

If you modify your car, tell your insurance. If you don't, you might as well not have insurance!

And you're making the premiums go up for the rest of us. So please, inform your insurance.

As babs and other have said, inform your insurers. If you cannot afford the small extra insurance cost then you cannot afford a remap.

Remaps are easily detectable, having seen Ben read an ECU the other day and tell whos remap was on the car in question its suprising how easy it is. Each company has their own signature in the map or copyright message etc.. Comercially available tools can read the ecu data even when not installed in the car on a bench and establish a remapped or standard ecu.

Hi there, I have a facelift RS petrol with a Revo stage one remap with a select handset, all I can say is it's fantastic.

bhp is up @ around the 160 mark and is plenty for two wheel drive.

Regarding the Insurance I'm with Tesco when I told them they just made a note of it and that was that, no price increase whatsoever, as far as warranty goes if you want to take your car to the dealer just plug the handset into the ecu socket and select it to back to stock mode, have the work done, get your car back, reverse the procedure and select performance mode and jobs a good un simple as that.

The handset allows you to switch between stock and performance, valet mode (this is a mode that you use if you take your car to be valeted it sets the car so it won't rev over 4 grand, so no one can screw your car) and anti theft mode, this is a mode that makes it impossible to pinch your car without the handset (even if you have the keys the engine will just idle) Cool!

To be honest if you've got one of these cars or gonna get one get it Revo'd it really is twice as good and nicer to drive with it done, nuff said.

To be honest if you've got one of these cars or gonna get one get it Revo'd it really is twice as good and nicer to drive with it done, nuff said.

Or check out the Shark Performance STS system

Hi there, I have a facelift RS petrol with a Revo stage one remap with a select handset, all I can say is it's fantastic.

bhp is up @ around the 160 mark and is plenty for two wheel drive.

160 bhp??? is that from a vRS?

I was with a mainstream direct insurance company and they wouldn't cover any modification! So i moved to a specialist broker and with all my intended modifications declared & an agreed value, the premium was the same :yes:

With regards to warranty, the dealer knew about all the mods, inc the re-map and they were fine about it. I guess if there had been a problem "'cos of the remap", then that may have been different.

I'd never advocate not declaring; as Mannyo said i factored in an increase in premium when budgeting for the modifications, and waited until i could afford it.

Thanks for al your advice / suggestions, not an issue of cost at all as it peanuts in the grand scale of things, after your advice I will be telling the insurance again to keep myself right I was simply wondering what the norm was as I know that some folk don't bother and risk it thinking the insurance will never find out.

Just to complicate things even more whats the story with a switchable system then, how much more do they cost, and how do you switch between the 2, I have only had normal straight forward remaps before so am a little unsure or how they work, I assume that as long as you were lucky / wise enough to have the system in "standard" mode at the time of any bump etc then you would still be covered under standard insurance (say for example you only used the remap settings on track / private road).

Cheers

You can find the switchable systems too even when in standard mode.

You're obviously looking for ways to avoid paying insurance from your comments.

You would have to ask your about the track/road set up.

Obviously you are aware that your insurance would pay out for serious injuries or death to third parties, then sue you into non-existence should you have a remap, not declare it and have a serious accident.

The police would no doubt have a few book shaped imprints to leave in your head too.

In terms of warranty, I would assume it will be a case of you have none and then have to argue your case each time. It may not be this bad, but this is going to be the default position.

Not looking for ways to avoid paying at all, money not an issue, if it was I would not just have bought my 2nd brand new VRS, I was just interested to hear other views on the matter, the reason for asking about the switcahable system is that someone mentioned it in a reply above and I have never had or seen one before and was not sure how they worked. As for asking about about the track / insurance and stuff that was just a question to put out there as 99% of the time the 200bhp as standard will be enough for the road but the extra from a remap would be great at a track day. Was just not sure how insurance would class a switcahable system when it was in standard mode on the road as no matter what mode you are in on a track you are not covered anyway.

Hope this clears things up.

As for asking about about the track / insurance and stuff that was just a question to put out there as 99% of the time the 200bhp as standard will be enough for the road but the extra from a remap would be great at a track day. Was just not sure how insurance would class a switcahable system when it was in standard mode on the road as no matter what mode you are in on a track you are not covered anyway.

Hope this clears things up.

You will definately not want to be driving it on road at 200Bhp once you have the map option, the torque on the map makes it so much more relaxed, and effortlessly quick a joy to drive. Most generic remaps are really designed for general road use rather than track focussed.

I am insured through the RAC no problems at all.

You can find the switchable systems too even when in standard mode.

You would have to ask your about the track/road set up.

You would have to check with your insurance re any "track" use irrespective of a re-map. Many companies expressly prohibit track days, so you would need to ensure you had the correct cover for that day anyway

You would have to check with your insurance re any "track" use irrespective of a re-map. Many companies expressly prohibit track days, so you would need to ensure you had the correct cover for that day anyway

I meant about having the map on but not using it on the road.

I can't think of any insurance that says you can't do track days, just that you're not insured when you do.

As to the OP saying obviously you are not trying to avoid payments, why the question about on/off maps.

If you're genuinely going to pay, then ask your insurer and see what they say.

chris knott insurance , not bad at all

Cheers again,

Will definatly be getting the remap done so max fun can be had.

Track days are a big NO for normal insurance so I would need to get a seperate policy on the day for those.

Elephant have said no when I enquired about the remap but current policy runs out in a couple of months so don't want to cancel and miss out on the no claims bonus, currently have 11 years and am early 30's so I know it won't make any difference to premiums but its a principle thing having earned them and all that. Plus once the cancellation fee is taken off the refund amount is zero anyway.

I may just get another short term seperate policy to run for a couple of months along side the Elephant one which has the remap listed and then renew for a whole year with a diffrent insurer with the remap listed.

Can anyone who has a remapped car recommend anyone for insurance, also how much more on top did you pay, folk have already suggested Chris Knott, anyone else worth trying.

The guy @ pipeworx who did the job has told me its 155 bhp, sorry

as far as warranty goes if you want to take your car to the dealer just plug the handset into the ecu socket and select it to back to stock mode, have the work done, get your car back, reverse the procedure and select performance mode and jobs a good un simple as that.

The map is still there for all to see, it doesn't actually "switch" maps, so don't rely on that getting you out of trouble when it comes to warranty

Cheers again,

Will definatly be getting the remap done so max fun can be had.

Track days are a big NO for normal insurance so I would need to get a seperate policy on the day for those.

Elephant have said no when I enquired about the remap but current policy runs out in a couple of months so don't want to cancel and miss out on the no claims bonus, currently have 11 years and am early 30's so I know it won't make any difference to premiums but its a principle thing having earned them and all that. Plus once the cancellation fee is taken off the refund amount is zero anyway.

I may just get another short term seperate policy to run for a couple of months along side the Elephant one which has the remap listed and then renew for a whole year with a diffrent insurer with the remap listed.

Can anyone who has a remapped car recommend anyone for insurance, also how much more on top did you pay, folk have already suggested Chris Knott, anyone else worth trying.

Chris Knott are very good, certainly better than Flux

Also if you have a good record try Pace ward http://www.pw-f.co.uk/content/view/17/79/ If you are intending to consider track days tell them & they can write a policy for you with a fee per track day & you simply notify them before the day & pay the fee & I also know from a friends rather sad experiece with some Armco at high speed they pay out. For me with a 500 bhp 350 zed the track days are £80 but Im probably a few years older than you. With track day insurance look very carefully at it, some have huge excesses of a grand or 2 which makes it only worth claiming if you do a massive amount of damage

If you want people on a forum to tell you not to declare mods, then may I suggest Max Power, or Saxperience?

Generally speaking, most people on this forum are sensible and want to protect themselves as well as others, so will insure their cars correctly.

As Babs said, Briskoda is generally a very sensible forum when it comes to these things.

I've been on plenty of car forums with my past cars where the opposite was true, and met people through those forums whose opinion was "they don't need to know" but as Cheezemonkai says when your house is being re-possessed because your insurance company are suing you then you will look at things a bit differently!!!

I even know one insurance company that refused to pay out because the claimant had changed the colour of their car carpet

Has anyone had any problems with re mapping new vRS's? I have heard on the grapevine that some new VAG cars have "anti tune" or something on the ECU. I'm picking my new petrol vRS up at the end of next week and I want to get it mapped up pretty much straight away

Thanks