ECU Flash and Vehicle Insurance costs

[Rewop]

Thank god that we don’t have to tell our insurance company’s anything about upgrades like flash exhaust etc. I do have the accessories ensured separately. Because if I crash and get a standard exhaust (example) in return instead of my akra I’m pissed. But we don’t have to tell about power upgrades, they don’t care .

Stefan

Hi Stefan,

Most UK vehicle insurance policies require full details of any modifications. My Insurance Documentation includes this definition:

A modification's any alteration to your bike from the manufacturer's standard specification. This includes, but isn't limited to:
● Bar ends
● Changes to the air filter
● Heated grips
● Braided hoses.

If you cover your bike in farkles then filling out the info on the insurance form is a real pain in the butt. Whether they need all this info' to properly assess the risk/value of your bike and/or have an excuse not to pay out is a matter of opinion

 

[PhilPhilippines]

When my son learnt to drive I struggled to decide what to get him. Do I get him an old banger as he’s bound to smash it up? Or do I buy him a new car hoping he’ll take better care of it? I bought new in the end. A few months later he smashed it up hitting a tree. Because it was new, the car had airbags, anti submarine seats, seat belt tensioners and steering wheel relocation. All of these systems had deployed and I’m convinced saved his life. I’m also convinced that if he had crashed in a banger he wouldn’t have survived.


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I am glad they worked.Friendly safety features.

Have you considered getting him to a higher level. RoSPA RoARDA are extremely good. The level of awareness and attitude are the primary goals. Once a gold standard is reached with RoSPA, there is High Performance Course which will take you to a very high level of competence. The enjoyment is not sapped from the driving pleasure either - RoARDA and particularly HPC cover ground quicker than most, except they will not be as quick as anyone that passes them......for obvious reasons.

In the US you have Drive and Stay Alive as the equivalent.

 

[PhilPhilippines]

Hi Stefan,

Most UK vehicle insurance policies require full details of any modifications. My Insurance Documentation includes this definition:

A modification's any alteration to your bike from the manufacturer's standard specification. This includes, but isn't limited to:
● Bar ends
● Changes to the air filter
● Heated grips
● Braided hoses.

If you cover your bike in farkles then filling out the info on the insurance form is a real pain in the butt. Whether they need all this info' to properly assess the risk/value of your bike and/or have an excuse not to pay out is a matter of opinion

That's how I remember it. PITA. My school cars were GTi's. Quotes ranged from 2,700 to 800 per car in the mid '90s.

 

[StefanOnHisS10]

Hi Stefan,

Most UK vehicle insurance policies require full details of any modifications. My Insurance Documentation includes this definition:

A modification's any alteration to your bike from the manufacturer's standard specification. This includes, but isn't limited to:
● Bar ends
● Changes to the air filter
● Heated grips
● Braided hoses.

If you cover your bike in farkles then filling out the info on the insurance form is a real pain in the butt. Whether they need all this info' to properly assess the risk/value of your bike and/or have an excuse not to pay out is a matter of opinion

Wow that sounds like a lot of extra cost. @bimota must be paying a lot then .
Here they use basic price from the motorvehicle, and you just say: but it’s an worldcrosser (for example) and I’ve added for 2500 on additions. They’ll raise the ensured amount with that number.

My case: I’ve personally got €5000 extra because of worldcrosser and ZE and various farkles. And €2500 for clothing. That only costs a few lousy euros extra every month.

Stefan

 

[MattR]

I am glad they worked.Friendly safety features.

Have you considered getting him to a higher level. RoSPA RoARDA are extremely good. The level of awareness and attitude are the primary goals. Once a gold standard is reached with RoSPA, there is High Performance Course which will take you to a very high level of competence. The enjoyment is not sapped from the driving pleasure either - RoARDA and particularly HPC cover ground quicker than most, except they will not be as quick as anyone that passes them......for obvious reasons.

In the US you have Drive and Stay Alive as the equivalent.

Yeah he’s nearly 40 now so any suggestion like that would probably not go down well!!
But you are right, I am an IAM member and as a blue light driver I had to pass a 4 week driving course and get checked every 3 years. I also do a one day Bike Sage course with the Police every couple of years to check for skill fade.


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[PhilPhilippines]

Yeah he’s nearly 40 now so any suggestion like that would probably not go down well!!
But you are right, I am an IAM member and as a blue light driver I had to pass a 4 week driving course and get checked every 3 years. I also do a one day Bike Sage course with the Police every couple of years to check for skill fade.


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Late 17th birthday prezzie lol.

 

[semmyroundel]

I had an XT660 and many members of that forum had a Kev's Mod which was a variable resistor under the seat, the form it took was a box with a dial that progressively enriched the mixture for using aftermarket cans.
Not a problem you may think, but my XT660X was written off in a bad accident and I never saw it again, given the propensity insurance companies have to look for any excuse not to pay out: "undisclosed mods", I'm glad I didn't do it

 

[StefanOnHisS10]

I had an XT660 and many members of that forum had a Kev's Mod which was a variable resistor under the seat, the form it took was a box with a dial that progressively enriched the mixture for using aftermarket cans.
Not a problem you may think, but my XT660X was written off in a bad accident and I never saw it again, given the propensity insurance companies have to look for any excuse not to pay out: "undisclosed mods", I'm glad I didn't do it

Semmy please do a proper introduction and update your location etc. We can’t make any sense of this post since insurance company’s in different country’s have different legislation and terms to their policy’s. What you mention isn’t a problem at all where I live.

Stefan.

 

[Checkswrecks]

Semmy please do a proper introduction and update your location etc. We can’t make any sense of this post since insurance company’s in different country’s have different legislation and terms to their policy’s. What you mention isn’t a problem at all where I live.

Stefan.

As a help to others and as stefan wrote, please do an intro post and put your location in your profile.

fwiw for others, semmyroundel's ISPs are in the UK.

 

[semmyroundel]

Sorry guys, I'm used to going on the S10 facebook forum in UK, so thought it similar.
I live in London, UK.
Regarding insurance, I've noticed here on insurance quoting sites that some of the insurers are actually giving out a list of mods that you don't have to inform them about-quite progressive.
However, I know that they also like to look for an excuse not to pay out, ie. invalidate insurance by claiming non-disclosure of facts.
There have been some appalling instances of really mundane items that would not ordinarily have affected insurance (things like being in someone else's vehicle in an accident, even if nothing to do with your insurance, and not telling them).
My point was a general one and crosses country boundaries: if there's something that may make your bike insurance not valid, whatever it may be, when the accident is serious, the insurance might get to take the bike away and who knows what they'll look at.

 

[pooh and xtine]

Insurers would have to routinely examine all of the ecus of bikes involved in insurance claims in order to identify the few with “recalibration” modifications - they don’t have the time or expertise to do this. It’s not as if they’ve looked for re-jetted carbs in the past and that would have been comparatively easy!

 

[semmyroundel]

Insurers would have to routinely examine all of the ecus of bikes involved in insurance claims in order to identify the few with “recalibration” modifications - they don’t have the time or expertise to do this. It’s not as if they’ve looked for re-jetted carbs in the past and that would have been comparatively easy!

That's good to know-me just being paranoid then!

 

[WJBertrand]

When I sent my ECU to Anthony, I’d already had it flashed by a local shop using a “canned” flash tune flash. No bueno. In talking to Anthony, he said even he, with all his programming equipment, is unable to see what’s already in the ECU. I think the chance of an insurance company discovering a reflashed ECU is nil.


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[jbrown]

Anthony uses Flash Tune hardware and software, which uses the Renesas boot mode writing capability of the ECU via an exposed serial line. There is no read capability via that interface. But the ECU includes an AUD (diagnostic) port that can be accessed by cutting open the appropriate location on the ECU to expose the contacts. That is what Flash Tune does to read the stock ECU content. It is relatively simple to do that, and hardware to do that would be cheap. The real effort comes in analyzing the code to find the various map tables.
You don't have to analyze anything to tell if the code has been modified, you only need an image of the stock ECU to compare against.
So an insurance company could easily make that determination if they are willing to cut open a stock ECU and the suspect ECU. But I don't think they would go to the effort unless there was a lot of money at stake, and they had reason to believe an ECU modification could be responsible for an accident

 

[pooh and xtine]

Yes, although you’ve got to be careful with complete ecu hex dumps that you avoid the fuel adaptation tables, and there will need to be analysis to ensure any changes are not just alterations to fan temperatures or the deceleration cut! Not sure Bosch (particularly) and other ecu manufacturers will be happy to provide encryption seed keys to any and every insurance company across the globe either.

 

[semmyroundel]

I think in fairness this nails the ECU flashing worry, they aren't going to bother.
As most of you have alluded to, it's more about power delivery than extra power.
I guess my thrust was more about physical things that they or a loss adjuster could easily see with little effort, that KEVS mod I mentioned would stand out like a sore thumb.
Even when it came to aftermarket cans if the extra power output was equal to or less than 5% they aren't particularly bothered.
However a mod like a variable resistor that they probably don't understand will be a red flag and we don't want to give anything away.