Hi all, planning an imminent Stage 1 map for my 2014 vRS 220. 

 

Was initially very keen on a Shark Performance map and got hold of them today through Racing Line (Ben is now their Software Director) but their Stage 1 is currently £649 inc. VAT. Also, they no longer provide the STS additional option (load the map yourself at home and turn it on and off at will). 

 

I can get a Revo Stage 1 for rather less through my Indy, so that’s my probable route. 

 

Insurance-wise, I’m with Admiral on a multi-car policy, but they won’t insure a remap or chip which gives more than a 25% power upgrade. 220 to a conservative 300bhp is 36%.  I did try to explain that these engines are minimum 300bhp with a Stage 1, irrespective of whether they start at 220, 230 or 245, but the only answer I kept getting was that the ‘computer won’t allow me to enter a power increase value of more than 25%’. 

 

So, unfortunately, it looks like I’ll need to cancel my policy and take my business elsewhere.  

 

Can you guys suggest a more sympathetic insurer please?

 

Or @DAN@ADRIAN FLUX, can you help?  I was previously with AF for four or five years, so perhaps a good multi-car deal including a Revo map can be found through your guys?

 

Thanks all, your expert opinions appreciated as always. 

 

Cheers,

Dunc

 

Edited 3 January, 20197 yr by dunc69

Hi, I have a TDI mapped and found LV= very reasonable.

 

Pete

@Gizmo @john999boy

 

Gents, could you please move this to the Octy3 forum?  Not getting much traction in here!

 

Thanks, Dunc 

Done

On 03/01/2019 at 19:35, Warmonkry said:

Hi, I have a TDI mapped and found LV= very reasonable.

 

Pete

 

+1 for LV 

 

 

Gaz

APR stage 1 is very good too but, I've seen a Revo stage 1 Mk3pfl 230 make 307bhp on very ACCURATE rollers

Thanks guys, appreciate your thoughts. 

Revo sounding good to me!  

 

Still want a driveable family wagon but with a touch of extra poke!

 

Those of you with maps / tuning boxes, any insurance recommendations?

 

Edit - just re-read @V6TDI‘s brief link above to add to Pete’s comments. Useful and many thanks. Will try LV & contact Adrian Flux tomorrow. Cheers. 

Edited 4 January, 20197 yr by dunc69

Hi dunc69, i’m exactly the same as you on remap. There’s two threads on here recently comparing revo and shark remap. 

 

As mine is a manual 220 it sounded like shark was a smoother map with less hp and could be better for clutch. 

 

https://www.briskoda.net/forums/topic/440817-recommendations-revo-or-shark/?page=2

 

I contacted shark and waiting for a response but at the price you’ve been quoted I’d prefer revo. 

 

However I’ve been looking at the revo torque graph for stage 1 and it doesn’t appear to be so aggressive that it would kill a clutch. In fact torque is lower than stock up to 2000rpm looking at the graph

 

https://www.onlyrevo.com/useruploads/images/pagecontent/software/2.0%20tsi%20stage3/2_0-TSi-MQB-Torque.png

 

So I’m minded to go for revo. 

@briskoda1 thanks for the links. Yes, I saw that thread a while back, and many similar ones longer ago, hence my original decision for Shark. 

 

But at £649, I turned elsewhere. My Indy is a Revo agent so this seems to fit for me, especially as I trust them completely and can go back if I have any issues. 

 

It does seem that the days of £350 or £399 stage one maps (admittedly often with group discounts) are over! 

 

Cheers

Dunc 

I'm not looking to map my car any time soon - I like the warranty to stay intact

Asking for a friend of mine who is looking to remap his Mk2 Octy - he mentioned a name I hadn't heard in years and had forgotten about to be honest.

Bluefin.

I seemed to remember they offered maps, but these were a little on the conservative side as they were maps for the model rather than maps for that specific car.

Are these maps still any good? Or still recommend people get personal maps?

I’ve just done AMD remap on my 2017 VRS. Was £499 with before and after dyno.

 

Personally I don’t worry about the warranty and insurance side of things. I just play dumb and “I had no idea & bought the car like it”.

 

Ny understanding from a warranty side of things is that if you do have an engine issue, it would take Skoda a while and cost them a decent amount of ££ to actually find out that it’s mapped....could be wrong, be from an insurance side of things, there is no way for them to know.

 

I have had everyone of my cars mapped and never had an issue in terms of insurance and warranty etc.

21 minutes ago, Chris245 said:

I’ve just done AMD remap on my 2017 VRS. Was £499 with before and after dyno.

 

Personally I don’t worry about the warranty and insurance side of things. I just play dumb and “I had no idea & bought the car like it”.

 

Ny understanding from a warranty side of things is that if you do have an engine issue, it would take Skoda a while and cost them a decent amount of ££ to actually find out that it’s mapped....could be wrong, be from an insurance side of things, there is no way for them to know.

 

I have had everyone of my cars mapped and never had an issue in terms of insurance and warranty etc.

You got both dyno plots to share at all please?

Pretty sure all they need to do is scan with ODIS to find the TD1 flag, so it would follow that all your insurer needs to do if they wanted to is ask Skoda (or VW) to scan with ODIS. That'd give them enough ammunition to start digging further if they wanted. The fact you've publicly evidenced on here, the registration of the car and date it was done, it wouldn't be the hardest case to put together if there was a lot of money at stake. 

15 hours ago, dunc69 said:

Thanks guys, appreciate your thoughts. 

Revo sounding good to me!  

 

Still want a driveable family wagon but with a touch of extra poke!

 

Those of you with maps / tuning boxes, any insurance recommendations?

 

Edit - just re-read @V6TDI‘s brief link above to add to Pete’s comments. Useful and many thanks. Will try LV & contact Adrian Flux tomorrow. Cheers. 

I second LV. Go online to their site and just tick whatever % the remap delivers above stock power.   It was about £140 cheaper than a specialist broker....as you're not paying the brokerage fee. 

10 minutes ago, Scotty72 said:

You got both dyno plots to share at all please?

 

25 minutes ago, Chris245 said:

 

Thanks impressive standard figures there too.. I'm convinced mine has more than what it has officially on paper too.. Just the butt dnyo though lol

2 hours ago, Chris245 said:

Personally I don’t worry about the warranty and insurance side of things. I just play dumb and “I had no idea & bought the car like it”.

 

Ny understanding from a warranty side of things is that if you do have an engine issue, it would take Skoda a while and cost them a decent amount of ££ to actually find out that it’s mapped....could be wrong, be from an insurance side of things, there is no way for them to know.

 

I have had everyone of my cars mapped and never had an issue in terms of insurance and warranty etc.

 

I'm not sure if the post is slightly tongue in cheek or not, but if not this is a potentially dangerous position to take from an insurance perspective - ignorance is not a defence.

 

As mentioned above, a dealer could find relatively easy whether the map is different to factory when it's hooked up to the online equipment (checksum will be different). Same would apply to an insurer looking to get out of paying a claim if they wanted to. An insurer probably wouldn't go digging further if you reverse into the side of your garage, or rear end someone at 30. However if you cause a 6 car pile up or plough into a bus stop full of people causing injuries and potentially death, then you can bet they will go digging much deeper on such a large financial cost claim.

 

My insurer would not cover me if I remapped my car, it's not a modification they cover, therefore if they found that I had a remapped car and not told them about it, then my cover would not be valid. They could rightly refuse to honour my cover, which would make for an expensive hit to the back pocket if I wrote it off with no payout. I expect they would still have to honour 3rd party liabilities, but if you and the car wasn't coverable under their terms and you deliberately withheld information, I wouldn't be surprised if they came back to you claiming for their full losses.

 

There's a few what ifs and in most cases you probably wouldn't get found out, but is it even worth the risk? Why would you not declare it? The only reason I can think of is increased insurance costs? If you can afford a VRS 245 worth £20k+ and another £500 on remapping, surely you can afford to insure it modified as it is? Do you even own it outright, or does a finance provider? If the latter, that would potentially create an even bigger issue should the worst happen and the finance agreement will likely state it cant be modified either.

Edited 5 January, 20197 yr by ahenners

I've just done a quote with L V for a remap on my 230. It's 9 pence cheaper than my present Insurers, Saga who don't insure Mapped Cars.

 

Might be a silly question but can you get a gentle remap, like a Stage .5 to add say 25 extra BHP and a bit more torque stead of a Stage one adding say an extra 60BHP. 

 

I'm thinking down the lines of protecting the Engine/turbo/clutch etc etc

 

 

Edited 5 January, 20197 yr by Auric Goldfinger

9 minutes ago, Auric Goldfinger said:

I'm thinking down the lines of protecting the Engine/turbo/clutch etc etc

 

The only thing protecting the Engine/turbo/clutch is your right foot.

 

Map it to what you like, it will only do damage if your right foot asks it

1 hour ago, ahenners said:

 

I'm not sure if the post is slightly tongue in cheek or not, but if not this is a potentially dangerous position to take from an insurance perspective - ignorance is not a defence.

 

As mentioned above, a dealer could find relatively easy whether the map is different to factory when it's hooked up to the online equipment (checksum will be different). Same would apply to an insurer looking to get out of paying a claim if they wanted to. An insurer probably wouldn't go digging further if you reverse into the side of your garage, or rear end someone at 30. However if you cause a 6 car pile up or plough into a bus stop full of people causing injuries and potentially death, then you can bet they will go digging much deeper on such a large financial cost claim.

 

My insurer would not cover me if I remapped my car, it's not a modification they cover, therefore if they found that I had a remapped car and not told them about it, then my cover would not be valid. They could rightly refuse to honour my cover, which would make for an expensive hit to the back pocket if I wrote it off with no payout. I expect they would still have to honour 3rd party liabilities, but if you and the car wasn't coverable under their terms and you deliberately withheld information, I wouldn't be surprised if they came back to you claiming for their full losses.

 

There's a few what ifs and in most cases you probably wouldn't get found out, but is it even worth the risk? Why would you not declare it? The only reason I can think of is increased insurance costs? If you can afford a VRS 245 worth £20k+ and another £500 on remapping, surely you can afford to insure it modified as it is? Do you even own it outright, or does a finance provider? If the latter, that would potentially create an even bigger issue should the worst happen and the finance agreement will likely state it cant be modified either.

 

I'm going to guess it's a matter of weighing up the averages - despite this idea that every single insurance claim is investigated fully and thoroughly, most insurance companies haven't got the time.

If it looks quite open & closed, then there is a good chance that nobody is going to be checking a car for mapping before paying out.

It's the same with non-expired, non-motoring offences. I know somebody who was a bit of a naughty boy, but didn't declare this on his car or home insurance - his argument was "Have you ever heard of anybody being asked to provide a DBS check before their insurance claim was paid out?"

It was a sound argument, criminal records are not something you can easily find out about and I've never read a story where somebody has made an insurance claim and then been asked to prove they don't have a criminal record.

 

However, if things do go wrong then the potential here is that you lose your vehicle and you get nothing back for it. Thankfully 3rd party damage can never be avoided, so if you hit somebody else at least their vehicle will get repaired, but you also risk the possibility of the insurance company attempting to claim from you the cost of repairing other people's vehicle, street furniture or medical claims they might make.

 

I last had a remap on a car on my last but one vRS and I found a good selection of insurance companies willing to insure me and in the grand scale of things, for not really that much more than if it wasn't remapped.

I'll be taking a look at sensible remaps in a couple of years, but insurance will be told - just not worth the risk in my opinion.

35 minutes ago, Auric Goldfinger said:

I've just done a quote with L V for a remap on my 230. It's 9 pence cheaper than my present Insurers, Saga who don't insure Mapped Cars.

 

Might be a silly question but can you get a gentle remap, like a Stage .5 to add say 25 extra BHP and a bit more torque stead of a Stage one adding say an extra 60BHP. 

 

I'm thinking down the lines of protecting the Engine/turbo/clutch etc etc

 

 

 

24 minutes ago, flybynite said:

 

The only thing protecting the Engine/turbo/clutch is your right foot.

 

Map it to what you like, it will only do damage if your right foot asks it

 

Exactly what FBN says Andy.  Mine's somewhere around 300bhp now - but I don't drive everywhere at 300bhp   Post remap the car's noticeably more tractable so most of my driving is sedate (ish) as it seems to need less effort.  Jim at JKM said mine's got the stronger map because it's a DSG - it's a gentler map for manual's so as to look after the weaker links in the drive train.

 

Gaz

Hi.

Hopefully we can he with your insurance. If you wanted to PM me some contact details I'd be happy to arrange for one of my quotes team to give you a call back.

Regards,

Dan.

2 hours ago, DAN@ADRIAN FLUX said:

Hi.

Hopefully we can he with your insurance. If you wanted to PM me some contact details I'd be happy to arrange for one of my quotes team to give you a call back.

Regards,

Dan.

Cheers Dan. PM’d. 

18 hours ago, Auric Goldfinger said:

I've just done a quote with L V for a remap on my 230. It's 9 pence cheaper than my present Insurers, Saga who don't insure Mapped Cars.

 

Might be a silly question but can you get a gentle remap, like a Stage .5 to add say 25 extra BHP and a bit more torque stead of a Stage one adding say an extra 60BHP. 

 

I'm thinking down the lines of protecting the Engine/turbo/clutch etc etc

 

 

 

You can get custom maps if you want, but they should be aware of them limits of them car and keep it "safe". 

 

Guy I used refused to go beyond 471Nm as he reckoned that's the highest, safe, figure he was comfortable putting on it, so there's a huge window between that and the ~350Nm that comes as standard on a 220.

Edited 6 January, 20197 yr by Saints92

20 hours ago, ahenners said:

 

Do you even own it outright, or does a finance provider? If the latter, that would potentially create an even bigger issue should the worst happen and the finance agreement will likely state it cant be modified either.

This is a good point. I have noticed on this forum the opinion that if a car is leased you can't touch it and if it is on manufacturers finance/pcp you can. You can't under either. The car does NOT belong to you whether it is leased or on Finance until the last penny is paid. It clearly states in my PCP that the car can not be altered from standard exactly the same as the one I have leased. Another point the PCP makes is that the annual mileage is pro rata, if you go over the pro rata rate they can charge you the mileage there and then, mid term. Taken from the service mileage and date. Now I don't have personal experience of this happening but it is written into all PCP's. At the end of the day, no car is yours on HP/PCP until you fully pay for it. You can  get away with mods on finance as you can purchase it at the end, but to be honest with VAG the lease is no different, you can and automatically get offered the car for purchase at auction price + a small mark up at the end of the term. As well as you can extend usually for a lower payment up to 4 years old and buy it when its more advantages.  Which over all often works out far cheaper than buying on finance depending on the discounts offered at the start.