OV9

A friend with an Impreza reckons that they are either driven by idiots who crash them or people who cherish their pride and joy. The idiots arent spending money on them and declaring it.

MikeHunt wrote: Thu Nov 20, 2025 4:17 pm A friend with an Impreza reckons that they are either driven by idiots who crash them or people who cherish their pride and joy. The idiots arent spending money on them and declaring it.

Plus the idiots will modify it and not tell the insurance company about it

Yes I was going to say that - someone that declares modifications is probably statistically less likely to crash than the average given they've shown themselves to be of scrupulously honest and sensible character

This could start a new trend the other way, keeping a car completely as factory spec, but telling the insurers it's been modified to save a few quid

On the basis that a remap will improve fuel economy and save on insurance, there is a strong man maths case.

GG. wrote: Thu Nov 20, 2025 7:59 pm Yes I was going to say that - someone that declares modifications is probably statistically less likely to crash than the average given they've shown themselves to be of scrupulously honest and sensible character

Also if you go daft you can spend about 20k on a car that’s still only insured for a value of about 10k, you’re in negative equity a lot of the time with big builds so you’re not going to be keen on starting over

Here's my stupid question for the day... When you purchase car insurance you input the value of your car, and thus you pay to cover that set value, why is it that when the car is written off there's this back and forth to agree the value of the car?

I assume that’s similar to when they ask if you have made any claims in the last few years, they’re interested to see how much your answer differs from their records.

my (very modified) van insurance was the same figure as last year through the specialist insirer. £575 through KGM via Howden.

Mito Man wrote: Fri Nov 21, 2025 7:15 pm Here's my stupid question for the day... When you purchase car insurance you input the value of your car, and thus you pay to cover that set value, why is it that when the car is written off there's this back and forth to agree the value of the car?

There must be bands of risk/liability. My renewal on my M2 was about £800 in September which was steep but I couldn't leave the insurer as we had a multi car policy which halved my daughter's insurance to £1800 versus elsewhere.

I asked why my renewal was 25%+ the market on an individual basis and they altered the estimated value to £49,999 instead of £50,000 and it dropped to £600!

I'd expect these variables to be linear but they clearly aren't.

jamcg wrote: Mon Nov 24, 2025 7:14 am

Claiming it was incumbent on the dealer to activate his tracker seems like a bit of a long shot... I can understand why the insurers reneged if he declared the vehicle as having a tracker when it didn't.

^ that. Unless it was written into the contract it seems a rather bold assumption. And, why didn't he even bother to check?

DeskJockey wrote: Mon Nov 24, 2025 7:44 am ^ that. Unless it was written into the contract it seems a rather bold assumption. And, why didn't he even bother to check?

That was my thought on it

I guess his argument is that the tracker is fitted by Bentley and payment should be made through Bentley, as opposed to direct to a third party which is what he should have done. Wonder if it is factory fit or dealer fit

He’s still an idiot either way

Just had a further thought. Under gdpr the dealership would either have to get express permission to add his details to the tracker or he would have been given information to self register it, so I bet he’s had at least 25 emails telling him his subscription is coming to an end, like I did from Skoda years ago as one of their infotainment subscriptions came to an end

That too seems a reasonable assumption. The emails could have gone into spam, but that's not really an excuse.

Only other thing, given how upmarket that dealer is, you would have thought they would check on stuff like that and perhaps give him a courtesy call. I mean, our local Renault dealer rang last week to ask about tyres because they had noted that they were (in their words) low on tread when they serviced the car 10 months ago (they weren't then, still aren't). Not too difficult to have a decent CRM system/process.

That's not to shift blame or liability, just a thought.

Interesting case.

According to this article (and I suspect none of the press stories are accurate) "An investigation found that the tracker had been fitted by an engineer at the dealership, but was not registered due a lack of customer details being provided" - which might suggest that no renewal notices would therefore ever have been sent or received (?)

Not sure if it's across the board but both our Porsches from the Tewkesbury Porsche dealer came with Vodafone trackers fitted and two devices/fobs for it. But we were specifically told they were not activated and since a tracker wasn't required for insurance, I deliberately didn't have them activated. The conversations and documentation were very clear; I can't see why a Bentley dealer would have been more slapdash.

Using the excuse that they didn't have his customer details is clearly rubbish when they would have them on the order form, would have registered the car to him and would presumably have done AML and/or credit checks.

The only way I can see him winning this one is if he can show that the dealer worked differently with a previous car purchase and set an expectation.