Disabling Traction Control and Insurance...

[John K]

I've been wondering, if your car allows you to set different modes on the TC, ESC, ESP, PDSMBIUOFv02.341 (if its a Porsche) and you select one of the racier ones or even turn it off and then you stuff it into something or someone, could your insurance company refuse to pay out on the basis you have 'modified' your car?

Because I have no life, I searched the .pdf of my insurance document for things like traction, stability, disable, modify and modi came up with...

8 Modifications to your car You must tell us what modifications you intend to make and obtain our agreement prior to making them. Modifications are changes to your car’s standard specification, including optional extras. These include, but are not restricted to, changes to the appearance and/or the performance of your car (including wheels, suspension, bodywork and engine). Failure to provide correct information or inform us of any changes could adversely affect your policy, including invalidating your policy or claims being rejected or not fully paid.

And looking at "changes to the appearance and/or the performance of your car (including wheels, suspension, bodywork and engine)."

Surely switching off the ESC - especially if it says "For track use only" when you do it - is modifying the performance..?

Any thoughts from the Barack Room Lawyers on the forum..?

[Dave Eastwood (Gadgetman) - Club Chairman]

Oooh, now that's a good one. I must admit, I'd not even thought about that. But certainly more extreme settings with "race mode" type names attached do ring alarm bells to say they might have consequences.

 

[Captain Colonial]

My reading of that is that optional extras are those fitted at the factory that are not part of the standard equipment on a particular trim level, or those fitted by the dealer after the car has left the factory.  For example, if bigger wheels are not part of the standard equipment on the trim level of the car you ordered or the dealer fitted them, the insurance company could only pay out on the value of standard wheels if they were stolen because you didn't tell them they were special.

I think you'll find traction control is standard on practically every mainstream car going, and switchable traction control in most of those cases.  So these are not modifications and would not fall under this provision.

You would be better looking for a "what if I drive like a nitwit?" get-out clause in the policy.  Turning the traction control off might well fall in this category.

[Thrustyjust]

When you speak to your insurance company and they state ' any modifications from standard' then if the car came with TC, ESP etc that can be switched off then its standard and not considered a non factory modification, such as air filters, exhausts or mapping. As for a track setting, that still comes with the car. As to if you want to turn it off, well like my mate did in his M3 , you then get a new front end and rear quarter from armco bashing ! I dont believe his insurance asked the question, they just repaired the car.

[Blatman]

It also says modifications YOU make, not "modifications" made at the factory to spec items. Using a factory fitted feature is surely outside this definition?

I'm sure there is plenty of other law to deal with the consequences of binning it if the TC is switched off. Driving without due care, dangerous driving and reckless driving would surely all be on the table if there was an incident large enough to want to cause the owner to claim.  

 

[Dave Eastwood (Gadgetman) - Club Chairman]

I tend to agree with Scott on this one, I'd suspect that looking under modifications* is the wrong approach. Perhaps we'll see it, perhaps we won't, but I would think it will take an accident with a potentially very large loss to trigger a court case, if circumstances were such that the insurer thought they had a very strong chance of proving that traction control/stabilisation/anti-skid type systems had been deliberately turned off, and that this was a major contributory factor to the accident.

However, I suspect it would have to be one of those cases where turning the systems off either completely turned them off, (as opposed to some that just go into a sort of nearly off, but will kick in for extreme situations), or one of the systems that allows for race/drift modes, where huge amounts of tail out behaviour is allowed.

*the exception would possibly be those old fashioned systems that could be defeated by pulling a fuse or two, or the weird ones where you have to press multiple buttons to get into hidden modes that the manufacturers don't actually advertise/promote.

[corsechris]

An interesting topic. Be nice to think that the MOTCO test would apply, it's a standard user control, use it 'when appropriate'. Not much different to use of steering wheel and throttle really. Then again, we are talking about insurance companies.

[Nemesis]

Here's my experience.....The traction control on all of my recent modern cars used the ABS to stop wheelspin...... in the event of snow and ice the ABS system worked quite hard, then it overheated and shut down, but not before it had ground the car to a halt...... so once it had overheated I thought "great, at least I can control the inputs and keep the car moving"....... but then cadence breaking is a bit hair raising to say the least...... hence the option to switch off the traction control and preserve the ABS system for stopping the car is an essential control, it's not just there for the "watch this" moments...... there can't be any clause in any insurance policy that can exclude factory fitted user optioned controls.

Nem............... 

[Ian Podmore]

When I have a loan car from the BMW dealer they prohibit turning off the traction,  ESC etc. Insurance as a minimum is invalid, and possibly permission to use the car as well if you turn them off (and get caught). 

[John K]

46 minutes ago, Ian Podmore said:

When I have a loan car from the BMW dealer they prohibit turning off the traction,  ESC etc. Insurance as a minimum is invalid, and possibly permission to use the car as well if you turn them off (and get caught). 

That's interesting, although I suspect it falls under Scott's "Nitwit" clause as the dealer is sick and tired of folk ragging their cars into the middle of next week.

As for getting caught, I would expect most modern cars to have some sort of black box function that records all the electrical statuses at the point of, erm, shall we say rapid -ve G...

I'm leaning towards the "it'll only come into play if it goes to court" scenario. As so many have said, if its fitted it'll get used and I'm sure insurance companies would call it out in the T&Cs if they would use it to wriggle out of paying.

I would still like the definitive response from the insurers, but to be honest, I'm too scared to call them as it'll get me a red mark on my records..! 

[Blatman]

What about this...

Many ECU's, whether after-market or OEM are likely to have some sort of TC capability. Are we negligent if we fail to enable it on our cars?

I'm running for the hills!!!

[Yanto]

Warning flippant remark 

Surely the other side of the coin is that if somebody has Launch Control and they don't use it at every "take off" and spin off the road then using the same logic the insurance company would refuse to pay out because you aren't using the "safety device" ?

[Nemesis]

Well that settles it then...... I'm off shopping with the Mrs shortly...... I'm turning all of the "safety features" off and I'm going to explore the limits...... I suspect she'll hit about 110db within the first quarter mile..... but that's just the Mrs..... who needs insurance policy wording to keep things in check??

Nem...............