TSI Engines - Any Good?

Insurance groups have very little bearing on premiums. The number of crashes people of your age driving that kind of model are likely to have has a massive one.

What's my age? ;)

I already did get a quote for the Astra Sri Turbo but unfortunately slightly out of what I can afford... only just though! I think the insurance groups definitely have an effect on the premiums otherwise there wouldn't be much difference between insurance group 6 and 13 or

1. I notice a big jump from 6 to 13.

I've only ever had one incident in my driving life so far and that was my own fault I caught a post in a car park as I was turning a tight corner which got my wheel arch. No other cars involved. I'm not a Michael Schumacher or a James May but probably somewhere in between. I don't claim to be a perfect driver but I'm by no means bad... a sensible driver.

John

Yes , they can be remapped. Which ones were you considering? There's now a choice of 1.2 , 1.4 , 1.8 and 2.0 engines , most with just a turbo , but the 1.4 has a turbo and supercharger.

The 2.0 will get you about an extra 15-20% on a remap and you'd probably get similar percentage gains on the smaller engines.

One thing to bear in mind though is the DSG gearboxes used with the 1.4 are pretty close to the torque limits so you can't remap those engines as easily as you could with a manual gearbox.

Taking a stab in the dark. You're in your early 20s.

I noticed when I was about 22 that with 0 no claims, there was very little difference between insuring something s*it and group 3 and insuring something group 14, it was about £600 whatever the group.

Wth nothng to lose, group 14 was what I did and I bought a 2.6l Carlton. A year and a half later I bought a Citroen BX GTi which was also the same insurance group and it cost me an extra £80 or so.

The extra was clearly because idiots in their early 20s crashed proportionately more BXs than Carltons. There were virtually no quick little Vauxhalls and Fords and even the cooking models were siilly money to insure.

This wasn't all that long ago, I bought the Carlton in 2003.

I have no idea, and it's not really relevant.

You're misunderstanding insurance groups. Insurance groups relate only to how much it costs to repair the car. Insurance premiums tend to factor a little of that in, but they also take cover a massive element of "How likely is the driver to crash this car, and how big will the crash be?". Generally the large elements of claims are injuries to other drivers and repairs / courtesy hire on expensive cars.

The extreme example is someone aged 18 or so, who wants to insure a £1k car. Their car may be group two, but the fact is that young kids in small cars tend to crash a lot, so the premiums are sky high. On the other hand, cars that are atypical for young drivers are fairly cheap for them to insure, despite often being faster and in higher insurance groups. Possibly 18 year olds buying 4 and 5 door mid sized cars have kids to carry around in the back and are more careful, or are broke and buying their own car rather than having it bought for them. Whatever happens, premiums are generally lower.

Ultimately my advice is to use something like Confused.com to get a load of ballpark quotes for a range of cars. Insurance prices vary massively for cars of the same insurance group and same performance.

And of course, if you're worrying about the numbers, you need to factor in depreciation. So it's probably wisest to buy something German. Cheap & small cars seem to barely depreciate. The fastest models in any line up similarly hang on to their value - the bottom price for any quick car in decent nick appears to be around £3k.

OK.

Ah! In that case please can you find me a car that's as fast as hell and is cheap to repair and thus insure? ;)

I've been driving for 15 years and only had one small scrape. I don't believe I am likely to have a crash. Most of the time I am driving in rush hour traffic at 10 miles per hour on the M62 and M1.

Thanks, I will have to try and get more quotes for different models. It is quite time consuming going through insurance sites though and filling out all your info then going back and forth changing the car make and model etc.

Believe me after having a Megane I am only considering German, Japanese, Ford, and Vauxhall. I'll never buy a French car ever again. Megane has cost me over £1000 a year in repairs alone. It's a bag of s**te.

I usually only buy used cars that are 2 or 3 years old and have already lost most of their depreciation from new.

John

I'll settle for that, quite happy with that guess :)

So... try find something that the chavs aren't driving around in and crashing all the time?

So far I have been looking at the 1.4 (122hp) engine and the 1.4 (138hp). I believe the 122hp just has turbo charger and the 138 has both turbo and supercharger on the VW group cars?

I didn't know there was a 1.2 with turbo as well. Are these small sized turboed engines all mainly on VW group cars?

If they have a 1.2 turbo I'm wondering what hp that has and what it would be after a remap?

Thanks.

John

Heh, OK, but my reasoning was that I gave up worrying about how much road tax brackets and insurance costs when I was about 25. I also bought a convertible and decided life was too short for a whole load of things that used to piss me off.

Put into perspective, the fuelling, maintenance and depreciation of a shiny car costs much much more than the tax/insurance once you have some experience under your belt so unless you're uying your car to keep your accountant happy rather than for driving, don't worry too much about it.

I think that's what I was trying to say, yes.

Generally these cars aren't small.

You can get similar small turbo'd lumps on Peugeots too if you want.

I do not know about this, but TSI Engine is very bet because my family have used this engine. so thanks for this machinist.which have provide....

Ah, Luca! Spaghetti in spogglethorpes makes winter vegetable lava lamp. Feely left hand drive skateboard.

Got norks?

Douglas Payne gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

And I always thought Carcoat Damphands was a spoof...

Not cheap to repair, but think Volvo/Saab Turbo models. Proper old man's cars, but pretty quick and both have active mature audience modding scenes.

Not cheap to insure but cheaper than a common chav rocket. And you have the choice of retro or modern, depending on taste.

I could be wrong , but only the 170 bhp 1.4 had both. The rest are turbo only.

Plenty of manufacturers are using them now. VAG are ditching nearly all normally aspirated engines.

a car that's as fast as hell

Mmmmmmmmmm. :-)

Or, if your mileage isn't silly, try something that falls into classic status?? Something like a Porsche 944 or (drool) 928 would be well within budget and shouldn't be silly to insure! (a bit more of an event to drive too)