Next car? Faster and Cheaper?

Does it give you more power, or merely give you that which it was designed to deliver in the package given to the customer? I'd say the latter.

Trouble is, your view differs from that of the people who matter.

As JackH says, you can almost certainly get away with it. But don't pretend to yourself you're doing anything other than that.

Peter gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

Legal necessity aside, how is putting you in prison going to pay for the adaptations necessary to allow the person you put into a wheelchair to live their life? Or to pay for the nursing care for the person you turned into a drooling vegetable? Or to pay for the million quid's worth of widgets that were ruined in the HGV that you pushed off the road?

Well, if we take the case of the Lupo I mentioned, it does run better on super unleaded, but the manufacturer says so in the manual, saying 95 RON is OK but 98 is better, so I'd guess it's part of the standard spec. Not all cars wll run better on high-octane fuel as the ECU map has to take account of it. If we're going down that road, how about driving it on a cool, dampish day!

This does bring up the wider discussion of where to draw the line on what *does* constitute a modification. Most people would agree that say fitting a different brand of tyres doesn't (lets say the car leaves the factory on Dunlop, Conti, or Goodyears, and you fit some pikey ditchfinders), but that fitting a lower speed rating seems a grey area. Fitting coilovers is pretty definite, for example.

Insurance companies can be right bastards sometimes though. Personally I've declared mods (about the only thing was a non-performance carb change on a Golf).

Your view is myopic, then.

-- JackH

Never mind the view, it differs from the facts; a remap is a modification - if he wants to believe otherwise, let him put it to the test when he invariably stuffs whatever it is he buys.

(Is it just me that, on the face of the posts so far, reckons that's looking more likely to be a certainty than a maybe?)

As things stand, aye - not sure I'd fancy my chances so much in the future though given, as already said elsewhere in this thread, it appears insurers appear to becoming a bit more savvy about this kind of thing.

Oh, and in case you were wondering, I'm 'clean' - the Golf is the massive 90bhp it left the factory with, much to my disgust on those occasions when you could do with just that little bit more acceleration. ;-)

I've not been torturing myself looking at Passat TDI Sport estates (1) on eBay etc of late at all...

(1) Not that I'll be selling the Golf - quite fond of it, weirdly.

-- JackH

g:

Never mind all that, think of the children!

-- JackH

Was quite interesting to see how the readings from the dyno used to vary on the same car, different day, and with no modifications to it between sessions.

The line sort of relates to how much difference to a vehicle a mod makes, IMHO.

In this respect, a remap, on the right car, (i.e one that knocks out a sizeable amount of extra power as a result of the map), makes a lot of difference.

-- JackH

Pretty much the same with many BMWs and Mercs nowadays. Essentially the same engine but different maps in the ECU to give different power outputs, presumably to appease the insurers.

I was astonished that my current insurers insisted on a restriction on the Exploder that invalidates the insurance if driven by someone under the age of 30. Apparently >200bhp is regarded as insanely dangerous.

Well... I think someone should put this to the test - get quotes on the lower and higher output models running their respective standard maps, then get a quote on the former running the latters map, and see what premiums they come up with.

-- JackH