Remap and Insurance

Yeah I even went through an AXA branch rather than their call centre but “underwriting” said no. I’ve appealed but not holding my breath. So frustrating.

Any luck with your appeal?

I've just emailed AXA underwriting to make my case for a 2012 F11 535i with a stage 1 remap, software only. We shall see 🤞

Hypothetically speaking, what would happen if one was involved in a road traffic incident and the vehicle involved was remapped by the previous owner unbeknownst to the current owner, in this case would the current owners insurance be invalidated if an assessor actually checked ECU for any modifications?

I wonder if there's a way to see at what point the remap was done through the ECU? It's not really feasible to know of previous owners' modifications on a car as it can be a huge amount of things which could technically void cover.

There was a poster here a while ago working in the industry who said they never check for modifications

This makes sense, it would take some amount of proficiency to be able to compare engine Maps. To understand what it all means and what differences to be looking for. Even if they were suspicious and determined to look into it, it would most likely be the job of a third party who knows what they're doing. Said third party is going to be costly and possibly turn up nothing.

People really underestimate the ease of detecting a remap. It would be easy money for dealers to do this for insurers on all but the smallest of claims as its super quick and doesn't require trained tech to plug in. Also, once a car has been remapped in any way (regardless of power or consumption goals) it will forever be flagged in ECU even if put back to standard.

I do wonder if its possible to read dates at which maps were changed which could put to bed to bed the "previous owner put it on" argument.

Has anyone ever had a map done, declared it and received a decent quote in Ireland?

It is mad how a remap in Ireland makes it near impossible to insure compared to the UK where its if anything an extra 10% or so.

Easy money for dealers, expensive for insurers. Adding to the cost of every claim that comes in.

It would almost certainly require a trained tech, insurers or main dealers aren't going to allow just anyone plug equipment into a cars brain. If a car is repaired but then has a fault, the blame will be passed to the unqualified person that was plugging things into it.

I work for a company who make automotive electronics, it its absolutely trivial for the manufacturer to read basically any parameter from any device in a modern car. Your commercially available OB2 reader might just tell you the software version, but it's absolutely possible to read specific parameters from most if not all networked devices. A simple checksum is commonly used to save time on production lines however.

Below are two examples which I happen to have seen. The BMW version is for sure more aimed at car blackbox (telematics) providers so they don't actually have to install a physical device in a car which natively has it's own recorder / GPS, but the point remains that insurance companies have access to such data on request.

They likely don't check because of the cost as you say, but also the difficulty in proving that the owner knew about the map. Far easier to deny a claim due to visual mods as said.

Out of interest...

https://az685612.vo.msecnd.net/pdfs/3b2dc914ca807879995b3bd1e01a75305a73fb2c/S40_owners_manual_MY12_EN_tp14006.pdf

https://bmw-cardata.bmwgroup.com/thirdparty/public/car-data/technical-configuration/api-documentation

I’d imagine that even if it was possible for an insurance assessor to plug some sort of scanner into an OBD port and see a remap, it doesn’t mean that it would hold up in a court of law as a reason to deny you insurance cover. Surely they would need the manufacturer to inspect the car and provide official confirmation that the car had been tampered with.

The post above could probably be used as evidence but even still I doubt a manufacturer that already has a service waiting list of up to 6 months is going to set up a special department just for insurance assessors.

And even still there is the argument that the owner of the car might not have even known about the remap.

I'm guessing that was the one up for sale on donedeal? Can't be too many 2012 F11 535i's about!