Most of the specialist ask for the percentage increase, not sure about the run of the mill ones

Correct, Ive also found the increase in premium isnt massive. THE BIGGEST thing to check before a remap is whether your present insurance company is happy with it & what extra they will charge for a part year, if you have it done & then ring you may find they wont cover you or see it as an opertunity to make a few bob as they know you wont go anywhere else

Its not up to insurance companies to prosecute, its up to the police, and people do get prosecuted for this very often. I know that I have dealt with plenty of them!

Whilst prison is unlikely if it was somebodies first offence it is an offence that is punishable by imprisonment. Another implication will be that you will be unlikely ever to get insurance again having been convicted of this offence.

I am amazed you think you persuing you for a third party claim is as bad as it can get, lets face it say you crash into a bus of school kids very seriously injuring some of them. Maybe paralyse a couple so they need lifetime care, the 3rd party liability will run into millions of pounds. You really think it wouldnt be that bad? It would ruin your life!

Is it worth it to save £50 or so a year?

Insurance companies can and do check for mods/remaps etc. After all there a profit making business so if they can avoid paying out claims and maximise their profits they will do. Its actually amazing how easy it is to get an insurance company to not pay out someones claim, usually when their car has been crashed or "stolen" in dubious circumstances so getting them not to pay out due to modifications would be equally easy.

Wow !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I agree people get prosecuted for lying to Insurance companies but I think it extreemly unlikely over just a remap but agree anything is theoretically possible.

Agreed on the 3rd party persuing of the money, I thought thats what I had put in the previous post although probably didnt explain it in strong enough terms, If you have assets they will come after you & that includes your house, anything you own. If you are scroat who lives on benefits you will be left alone, sad but thats society.

Lastly I declare everything, my nissan is 81% up on std power, different suspension, brakes, even things like uprated clutch which are not visible are declared, I see no point personally in taking the risk, also with a decent insurance policy cost of modifications are added to the cars value should it be totalled.

ROFL.

Seriously, saying the wrong thing to an insurance company over the phone is not a criminal offence. I know you're trying to stretch it out to "insurance fraud", but it's not and never will be.

Further, ECU modifications don't cause car crashes. Drivers do. In any given accident there are hundreds of factors more important than "OMG, he had 20% more torque available".

Lying to an insurance company to obtain cheaper insurance is a criminal offence.

Unless I have been doing my job wrong for the last 16 years, the CPS who prosecuted the cases and the magistrates who found people guilty must be doing their jobs wrong too.

see section 174 of the road traffic act 1988 - its a long section that covers various document offences however the last bit reads.

(5)A person who makes a false statement or withholds any material information for the purpose of obtaining the issue—

(a)of a certificate of insurance or certificate of security under Part VI of this Act, or

(b)of any document issued under regulations made by the Secretary of State in pursuance of his power under section 165(2)(a) of this Act to prescribe evidence which may be produced in lieu of a certificate of insurance or a certificate of security,

is guilty of an offence.

Edited 6 April, 201313 yr by ed209

I've had mine on the car for 3yrs and haven't said anything to the insurance company. How could they tell anyway it needs to be driven to know the difference from standard, if a car looks standard why would they think otherwise?!

If you had a bad RTA the police investigation team would check your ECU probably; they have access to the necessary resources.

If they found you had a remapped ECU and told your insurance company your policy would be void and youd be up for driving without insurance charges....all very much worst case of course but you are inherrently taking a massive risk not advising your insurer of the change.

If you had a bad RTA the police investigation team would check your ECU probably; they have access to the necessary resources.

If they found you had a remapped ECU and told your insurance company your policy would be void and youd be up for driving without insurance charges....all very much worst case of course but you are inherrently taking a massive risk not advising your insurer of the change.

The third party bit wouldnt be void at all, see my earlier post in the thread. You would nto be guilty of driving without insurance, you would probably be persued by the insurance company for their losses though and maybe for the offence i mention in my above post.

Unless I have been doing my job wrong for the last 16 years, the CPS who prosecuted the cases and the magistrates who found people guilty must be doing their jobs wrong too.

Since you have such experience in this matter. You should be able to provide us with several relevant examples where exactly this has occured.

That is, people have been prosecuted and jailed by the police for not declaring software modifications to their cars.

Edited 6 April, 201313 yr by Kiwibacon

If you had a bad RTA the police investigation team would check your ECU probably; they have access to the necessary resources.

If they found you had a remapped ECU and told your insurance company your policy would be void and youd be up for driving without insurance charges....all very much worst case of course but you are inherrently taking a massive risk not advising your insurer of the change.

Rubbish.

In a bad RTA, they will be looking at the terrible driving decisions (one or both parties) which directly cause the accident. Vehicle software is irrelevant when crashes are caused by people no obeying the road rules.

When they can and do prosecute based on that, the software and power in your car is irrelevant.

Doesn't matter whether you're driving a veyron or a citigo.

BTW, my insurance company didn't even car when I turbocharged one of my (diesel) vehicles. If it was a petrol there would have been ~40GBP a year extra.

Edited 6 April, 201313 yr by Kiwibacon

Can we please get back to the subject!

Rubbish.

In a bad RTA, they will be looking at the terrible driving decisions (one or both parties) which directly cause the accident. Vehicle software is irrelevant when crashes are caused by people no obeying the road rules.

When they can and do prosecute based on that, the software and power in your car is irrelevant.

Doesn't matter whether you're driving a veyron or a citigo.

BTW, my insurance company didn't even car when I turbocharged one of my (diesel) vehicles. If it was a petrol there would have been ~40GBP a year extra.

Well you're obviously such a subject matter expert then are you?!

Its fact any mechnanical modification you make to your vehicle which has potential to affect the way it drives would technically invalidate your cover if you did not inform your insurance company and technically you'd be as good as driving without cover. They are in the business to make money out of people; if they have an oportunity not to cover you and so not to have to pay thousands out to repair yours or a 3rd parties vehicle then they'll take it. If you found yourself in this situation you'd be in a fair amount of trouble.

You're being very naive if you dont think the police/insurance companies dont have the resources to investigate these things. If a crash is serious enough they'll remove the ECU and data log it to see what sorts of speeds you were doing up to the incident as they'll need all the proof they can get as to whether you were or werent speeding. Of course it could be destroyed but there is always a chance they could investigate to this length if an accident was serious enough with potential for loss of life claims/payouts. Someone capable of doing that kind of ECU interrogation could almost certaily determine whether the cars software was standard or not too.

Im not saying people (clearly like yourself) dont get away with it but frankly I think anyone taking the risk of being light with the truth with their insurance company is being bloody stupid and it could very will bite them in the future. I certianly wouldnt risk prosecution/possible prison for the sake of a few measerly quid a month extra on my policy; otherwise I just wouldnt bother mapping a car as theres only so fast you can travel on UK roads and my CR170 Octavias probably a bit too quick already.

One things for certain nowadays you should make your insurer aware of a remap and if you dont youre just being foolhardy.

....ok back on subject.

A remap often improves overall MPG as the tendency is not to drive the car as hard as before to extract similar performance and so efficiency improves.

It does however exhibit more stress on the mechanical components of the car and they will undoubtedly wear quicker. A clutch on a vRS CR diesel for example would die considerably quicker as it wouls have to bare the brunt of an additional 70lb/ft torque; well outside of manufacturers tolerances.

Also you have the whole warranty debate; all I say is do what you want. A remap will give a Skoda dealer just cause to refuse any engine and tranmission related warranty work but on the flipside, if you tell them and get them on side they might keep the remap quiet and honour the warranty claims as its a guaranteed revenue stream for them.

As per my rather tiradical response above (and genuinely no offense meant to the other poster....I just strongly disagree with what he said) if you remap you really should tell your insurer just to be on the safe side.

Well you're obviously such a subject matter expert then are you?!

Its fact any mechnanical modification you make to your vehicle which has potential to affect the way it drives would technically invalidate your cover

Do you know what a remap is?

It is not a "mechanical modification"

Do you know what a remap is?

It is not a "mechanical modification"

Hmmm rather depends on how you view it. Technically your changing the software on the vehicle to mechanically make it work harder to produce more power...it therefore no longer operates mechanically as it did before. Also most new cars with tricore processors have to have the ECU removed and broken open to facilitate the software change; therefore the ECU is now also mechanically altered.

Take this for example, new car remapped but done so poorly by an inexperienced tuner.....ECU has been prised apart but then not resealed properly. Bit of a freak incident I know but say said ECU became liquid damaged causing all the major systems on board to fail at motorway speeds and caused a severe RTA.

Further investigation reveals the ECU to be at fault and it was found not to be in factory condition, a remap is found and that had not been declared to the insurer......oh dear Im not sure I'd want to be involved in that!

I hope you see my point though.....yes it may seem a bit far fetched and yes the police/insurance companies probably very rarely go into this level of detail but my point it that they can and do have the resources available to do so if they so choose.

We'll have to agree ro disagree here but I definitely wouks not risk remapping a car and then not telling the insurance company.

I can see both sides on this, (Kiwi and Pip) and fear that slightly different meanings are being applied to words.

From what I see a remap makes no physical change to the car's components (let's not discuss the atomic weight of changed programming),so no egr removal, or DPF removal, not a bigger turbo etc etc. What it does is change the software parameters which will affect the mechanical side, but the mechanical side (at Stage 1 at least) physically remains the same. Nothing added, nothing taken away.

Anyway, I thought the topic was how a remap affects fuel economy.

when getting an insurance quote the question is "Does your car have any modifications?"

of course a remap is a modification.

when getting an insurance quote the question is "Does your car have any modifications?"

of course a remap is a modification.

Just out of interest: how does that relate to the topic of the conversation? (Remap and fuel efficiency)

And to clarify my previous post: Yes of course it's a modification, I didn't say otherwise.

Hmmm rather depends on how you view it. Technically your changing the software on the vehicle to mechanically make it work harder to produce more power...it therefore no longer operates mechanically as it did before. Also most new cars with tricore processors have to have the ECU removed and broken open to facilitate the software change; therefore the ECU is now also mechanically altered.

It doesn't matter how you view it. A remap is software, it is not in any way a mechanical modification.

Take this for example, new car remapped but done so poorly by an inexperienced tuner.....ECU has been prised apart but then not resealed properly. Bit of a freak incident I know but say said ECU became liquid damaged causing all the major systems on board to fail at motorway speeds and caused a severe RTA.

That particularly tenuous example is about an RTA caused by shoddy work. It's the equivalent of a wheel falling off after a tyre change. It wasn't the tyre causing the problem.

....ok back on subject.

A remap often improves overall MPG as the tendency is not to drive the car as hard as before to extract similar performance and so efficiency improves.

This is also wrong.

As already stated several times in this thread, remap economy gains are made through efficiency gains. Gains which effectively undo emissions controls.

Particularly advancing injection and spark timing which increase NOx and disabling EGR which further increases NOx.

There is also a small effect from being able to pull higher gears due to more torque.

Q if the co2 readings on M.O.T. are well in excess of the standard for that vehicle on inspection, caused by remap, this would be a fail would it not, rendering the vehicle uninsurable. Thats if we are talking honesty here. I notice critisism for the guy not informing his insurance company,but glass houses and bricks come to mind. How many people say there car is garaged at home, when it lives on the drive, that is fraud just the same. How many people have minor damage done in a accident mend it themselves but dont tell the insurance company. enough said.We all cut corners at times just dont moan when you get caught out.

Q

Edited 10 April, 201313 yr by brownfox

Q if the co2 readings on M.O.T. are well in excess of the standard for that vehicle on inspection, caused by remap, this would be a fail would it not, rendering the vehicle uninsurable. Thats if we are talking honesty here. I notice critisism for the guy not informing his insurance company,but glass houses and bricks come to mind. How many people say there car is garaged at home, when it lives on the drive, that is fraud just the same. How many people have minor damage done in a accident mend it themselves but dont tell the insurance company. enough said.We all cut corners at times just dont moan when you get caught out.

It is impossible to measure a car's CO2 at the MOT.

You are not obliged to tell an insurance company if you have minor damaged repaired yourself.

Electromagnetic fields cannot diminish your bodies precious fluids.

There is no Santa Claus.

Elvis is dead.

It is impossible to measure a car's CO2 at the MOT.

You are not obliged to tell an insurance company if you have minor damaged repaired yourself.

Electromagnetic fields cannot diminish your bodies precious fluids.

There is no Santa Claus.

Elvis is dead.

Of course you are obliged to tell the insurance company (im not sure if your post is serious or not)

Do I have to tell them if I wash the car too?

There is no Santa Claus.

Please tell me thats a lie !!!!!!!

It is impossible to measure a car's CO2 at the MOT.

You are not obliged to tell an insurance company if you have minor damaged repaired yourself.

Electromagnetic fields cannot diminish your bodies precious fluids.

There is no Santa Claus.

Elvis is dead.

WTF. No Santa???????????

Hi have no experience of this myself but a neighbor had his vw based motorhome maped last year 2.6ltr diesel i think.

Him And His Wife Go To The Same Park 3 Times A Year And On That Jouney They Have Seen Mpg Gains.

Most Of The trip Is Motorway And He Told Me His mpg Has Gone Up Over Before Because He Can Hold His Speed At A Lower Rpm. He Also Doesnt Need To Change Down A Gear On The A Road Hills They Drive Up.

This In Mind, Its Unlikely To increase Mpg In Town??

(Excuse My Galaxy S3 Putting A Cap Infront Of Every Word!!)

Download google keyboard, much more user friendly

Mike

Try Swiftec.