Been here before, you would never be able to sell it legally and they are illegal to drive. So bang goes your insurance

Been here before, you would never be able to sell it legally and they are illegal to drive. So bang goes your insurance

Can you please provide a reliable reference that confirms that your insurance is invalid when driving a car with an inactive or removed catalytic converter?

There are clauses in all insurance policies regarding changes or modifications to the factory specification that is the basis of all insurance. Yes you can drive anything on UK roads as some do but get found out and you are in serious trouble especially if you have an accident

I do wonder what would happen if I bought a second car that had been modified and I didn’t know about the modification.

I recall we had someone post here who was in that position. Their insurance was quibbling because of a non-standard air filter that was fitted to a car they'd bought IIRC.

Crazy that despite owning the vehicle outright, the government still see fit to regulate what you can do to it, will remaps become illegal too? Slippery slope

They would be if they increased emissions. Some probably do.

Crazy that despite owning the vehicle outright, the government still see fit to regulate what you can do to it, will remaps become illegal too? Slippery slope

The government doesn't regulate what you can do with your vehicle, you can modify it in any way you like!

What the government does regulate is what kind of vehicle you're allowed to drive on a public highway, and quite right too. Certainly remaps should be regulated and only supplied and fitted by validated experts. You don't want a car that's got a remap with a glitch that stops the engine 3 seconds after using kickdown but only if the thermostatic cooling fan and main beam are on! I've had a car with a faulty ECU (not remapped) and it wasn't a lot of fun.

Edited by Sofa Spud on 27/02/2023 at 00:30

Crazy that despite owning the vehicle outright, the government still see fit to regulate what you can do to it, will remaps become illegal too? Slippery slope

So you don't think there should be limits to what can be done and driven on the roads?

Crazy that despite owning the vehicle outright, the government still see fit to regulate what you can do to it, will remaps become illegal too? Slippery slope

No such slippery slope in Taiwan. Any vehicle modification, of any kind, is absolutely illegal.

Avoids authoritay having to think too much (or at all) which they dont much like,

OTOH they arent ultra keen on enforcement, so there is a bit of wriggle room

Presumably they gut the DPF and weld the canister back together, i would have thought an MOT inspector could tell from tapping the thing whether it contained the perishing filter, maybe they put an inner liner inside so it doesn't sound hollow.

Would expect there to be other issues too, during the full throttle part of the test some smoke is more likely without the filter inside.

Not something i'd do, could be all sorts of future implications if a future test station twigged it and called in the DVSA inspectors.

If cars were fitted with the necessary to perform static regens if necessary, as trucks are, this dodgy game probably wouldn't be needed.

Which leaves an interesting environmental question if indeed fuel consumption is improved. Particulate emissions would be up, because that’s the purpose of the filter, decreasing air quality in the area in which the car operates. But, if fuel consumption is improved, that should be lower levels of CO2 emitted because of less fuel used per mile/km. Which is less harmful to the planet. Which takes a (hypothetical) priority?

It's a dilemma I've wondered about too.

Is the improved MPG a function of not having any more regents or is that another saving?

It's a sham diesel seems moribund, because I don't think it would be that hard for manufacturers to come up with a better system to deal with soot given time and a reason to do so.

DVSA issued a special notice to all MOT stations a while back, stating that any found to be offering such services would be struck off.

The latest emission testing machines already have OBD plug in facility to record temp and RPM readings during test, and DVSA are looking into making greater use of this connection, including detection of non standard mapping!

"non-standard mapping" will need a complex legal definition - manufacturers issue updates for a number of reasons - as a genuine upgrade, as a correction of a previously wrong map and to mitigate "dieselgate" cheating.

Some owners of certain models ensure that correction updates AREN'T applied as in some cases they reduce driveability.

I don't know what would be visible to an MoT station but my VW Touareg has an OBD warning message that an illegal update has been performed - simply because I used a third-party update for the satnav maps - it doesn't bother me as the car is out of warranty and doesn't appear to worry my VW dealer when they service the car.

Can't speak for all cars but "deleting" the PDF from the ECU causes all manner of long term issues on Peugeots - especially if the remap isn't great.

You're better keeping it stock and replacing the DPF with a pattern part from CATS2U.

Not sure about the very latest ones but some diesels from a few years ago used both EOLYS and Adblue - talk about double trouble!

But yes, you're right - if the system is well maintained and the vehicle isn't a "town pootler" then the system will run and regen just fine. Only issue long term is that there's a lot of components that go wrong over time (just age related) and just one can stop it working properly - glow plugs, engine fan wiring loom, fuel cap magnets, wiring to additive tank exposed to dirt in rear wheel arch, additive tank or pouch getting punctured to name but a few I've seen