how can you be sure of modifications?

[tim124]

Im 20 insured under my own name 1 year NCB in my 1991 Clio 16v

im paying £850 TPFT.

Im usre this sort of question has been posted before but a search came up with nothing much.

How can anybody be sure that their car hasnt been modified? With a new car its quite clear cut, but with a second hand car how can we know?

My car is insured as standard. Recently ive noticed a couple of things which arent standard. a panel K&N and the ecu has a renault part number beginning with a 6 which from what I gather is clio cup part.

The point im trying to make is can we ever be sure 100% that our car is not modified unless we strip it down, check every part number etc and rebuild the car again.

Tim

 

[disco]

I was wondering this the other day!

 

[Laura]

i have actually thought about this 2, when i bought my car as far as i am aware the only mod was a sport badge on the back of it.... but how do i actually know this is the extent of it

 

[sh33n]

There was a change in the law recently that said if you believed it was standard then you were covered, of course how you prove this is rather different.

 

[MRBILLYUK]

For one it depends on how clued up on the car you are if it was say an exhaust , some people wouldn't have a clue it was an upgrade or standard .

Other things like a matched inlet manifold you wouldn't know , its not a visible mod , also with a remapped ecu or grp n ( 172/ 182's ) you'd have a fair idea i guess if you didn't hit the rev limiter until 7800rpm .

 

[biojo]

ye its right , if u buy the car now and insure it has standard , they have to believe u thought it was standard , unless they could proove u had the mods done to it ,

but if u didnt know it had the money spent on somet like coilovers would u really be that pissed if they got replaced with stanard springs/shocks.

as for pushing the car to redline see if ecu`s been changed very rare i boot mine , and not to extent of near the red . so id personally never know and for wats been done to a engine . i aint takin the thing apart.

 

[Gareth]

there are thousands of cars on the roads with different alloy wheels which have been put on, I bet atleast 80% of the owners don't know/have them listed as a modification.

 

[tim124]

yeah i used to have an old diesel clio that came with tiny cycle wheels.

So i was able to stop I put 4 clio 16v spare wheels on my car (you know the heavy silver steel ones)

it was really blatent that they were not the standard ones so i declared them and it cost £50 extra

After a few weeks with better stopping rubber and standard brakes the unvented 10mm disks were glazed over and cracked so i put some R5 GTT disks and calipers on. I didnt declare that i had done this but you'd really have to know your stuff to know that the brakes were not standard. The extra rubber and brakes certainly kept me out of trouble.

Tim

 

[Supertrogg]

I suspected my 04 172 had been chipped after purchase. I should have suspected prior to the sale as it had an induction kit fitted! D'oh! Hindsight is a wonderful thing!! The dealer replaced it with a standard box. A quick email to Superchips confirmed a remap about 2 years ago. The springs were Eibach. The insurance was ok as far as the springs were concerned (extra £15) but the filter and ecu rendered the insurance void. After a daft conversation with them they agreed to cover me until I had it remapped to original at a Renault dealer. The windows had a crap graduated metallic tint to all four side windows and a limo black tint to the hatch. The tint on the front doors actually rendered tha car illegal for use on public roads! I didnt know this at the time but did a bit of digging on the internet. The tint was removed as soon as I could get it done. The dealer could have been done for selling a vehicle that contravened the Road Traffic Act! They put all the mods right apart from the springs.
I guess the bottom line is (and I should have listened to my own advice!!), if in doubt walk away. Unless the seller is willing to pay for the changes. If you dont know what you are looking at, take a friend along who does or get an RAC/AA inspection done. Also do a Google for the legal side of things. Thats what I did to find out about the inequally applied law covering tinting.

 

[Conor88]

A few days after i bought mines i suspected the car may have been modified as there was no VIN plate, the guy i bought it from doesn't know about it either so it must have happened before he bought it. I've sorted it with the garage but you need to sanction the car and wait 6-8 weeks for a new plate

 

[Martin_172]

only mod ive declaired is suspension, as its pretty obvious, both my sets of wheels have renault badges, standard looking to me! how was i to know they seats and spoiler didnt come standard! uprated brake pads and engine mount bushes, what are they?!

 

[jonesyx]

^^ untill the insurance co start digging on the internet when they see a cliosport sticker on your car

If you were to get caught just deny it, apparantly the Insurance obudsmun (spelling) will usually force insurance companies to pay out anyway

 

[biojo]

well for my mods , coilovers , viper , full zorst , it cost an extra 40 quid last year n this year it didnt cost me bugger all , as i got a few quotes for a unmodified 172 , and then told me current insurer what they quoted me n they matched it with a little nocked off .