Car appreciation... the aesthetics, the engineering, etc

Insurers be liek... Libido gone?

Cool. :o)

Try doing a quote with the parking set as on street rather than driveway.-This often brings down the cost, as breaking into houses to steal keys for the car parked in the driveway is big business these days. Cars parked on street are much less susceptible to this as it’s not obvious which house the keys are in - doing this brought my quote down by about 25%.

Great choice for a first car. Mine was a Dolomite Sprint that my dad bought me off the side of the road for £500. Insured for next to nothing and ran great with minor bodged repairs for four years. I loved that car...

I'm looking at ECU's, and I admit - I really, really don't want to spend the money that a Syvecs S7Plus costs. However, the engine designer and mapper knows that system, so I suspect it's a false economy to get for e.g. a Hartech Elite 2,000 for 1/3rd the price.

I was pretty late to car ownership, first was a Focus ST170, bought aged 29 for £2,500 and insurance was £1,300 parked on street in Peckham.
Currently paying £550 to insure a 300bhp Seat Leon Cupra, off-street parking in Greenwich.

yeah this is an odd artefact in car insurance nowadays. my car is the same price to park on the street vs on our drive (town centre location)

What’s the consensus on remapping?
The below is tempting for a stage 1 but the car is a 19 plate so still well in warranty period.

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I gather that storing your car in a garage can increase your premium further, given the risk of clobbering a wing mirror on the way in or out.

I'm not fully up to date with all modern car remaps, but what I'd say is, if you're depending on the manufacturer warranty, then go for a remap from a big brand that's been around for a long time and has a history of working with that manufacturer and model. There's still a risk, but it will be lower. I wouldn't depend on, or trust remap providers that say their remap can't be detected.

Don't just look at peak power and torque increase, area under the curve is important and how much sooner or later the increase comes in.

I wouldn't remap or modify a car under warranty unless it was explicitly ok'd by the manufacturer, such as Ford & Mountune or VAG Group & ABT do for some vehicles. That's just me being risk averse and wary of having to foot a big bill if things go pop.

Yeah - it was great, and only about £3k back then (thank you graduate signing on / house moving bonus...)

It'd been totally bolts off rebuilt by a Triumph anorak a couple of years earlier and then garaged since. I felt a bit upset when I sold it!

I had a Dolly Sprint a couple of years ago as well, it sounded magnificent - both totally inappropriate first cars:)

Just echoing what @NurseHolliday said. If you're remapping a golf for example, an APR tune or Revo tune is a pretty safe bet. Same with some Volvo's, I think there's a factory backed S60 tune from polestar.

Custom maps from independent tuners? Would definitely be higher risk.

Yeah that makes sense, I’ll do a bit more research. Family car so I will not be popular if it blows up!

Oh ta very much! Gonna check that out now

I believe Ford/Mountune have split which was a big deal for a lot of ST owners.

Is it ever worth remapping a 1.4 golf, 2016, or only really worth doing GTI’s and above?

Thankfully, a lot of them won't be catastrophic failure, but earlier degradation of expensive parts like turbos for example will add up over time.

Also, in my experience, some of the smaller (not great) tuners won't do a lot of real world testing, so even though the graph might look good, a turbo car for example might really suffer from heatsoak and high IATs because there's no supporting mods with the remap. This will end up causing a performance hit rather than improvement.

If I get a box fitted I can reduce the cost - is this a good idea or the man spying on me?

fuck that. £600 is more than palatable for insurance in london with 0 NCB

Yeah having looked a bit more, I think I’d only be comfortable with someone like APR who have tested a full upgrade path and limit things for the stock bits.

It’s a 2.0 TFSI engine in a seat - detuned golf gti unit apparently.

If you are going to give it back in a couple of years do you care about long term part wear being increased?

It’s not on finance but that’s a reasonable point - if we chop it in, who cares?

I agree, but some of the really shit one man band remappers will happily fuck your engine within a few months. Especially if you're the type to do launch after launch and limiter bash at every opportunity.

Yeah for VAG I'd be comfortable with APR or Revo. Where are you based in the UK?

South Coast, doesn’t look as if there is anyone particularly close.