Bongo Fury

Hi lads and girls Just a little bit of info... removing the cat will make the car / van, diesel or petrol not valid on your insurance ... each and every car has type approval / build details which are supplied to the pool of insurance companies, they use this to identify what is standard and what is not, I have a unusual ford fiesta van a bit of a prototype you might say all done by Ford, It has no cat and drops smack in the cat approval year of manufacture, NO INSURANCE COMPANY WILL INSURE IT,
But its standard from ford, but not on there list. ???

I had to get the company who compiled the details for all the insurance companies to re look at the van, no mean feat !!

This is the letter I received back Premier lynes house 2 lynes lane Ringwood Hampshire BH24 1BT

Thank you for the letter dated the 9th of January I am sorry you have had to write to us under these circumstances
Nearly all intermediaries use a vehicle file to look up the make and model of the vehicle to be insured. This is provided by the Association of British Insures and shows the log of all vehicles manufactured and sold in the UK, In view of the vast number made occasionally the list is incorrect or misses a particular model this is what appears to have happened for your vehicle.
Under the circumstances, I have written to your insurance company and advised that we have no issues whatsoever in providing motor insurance cover for you. However should you encounter any further problems please do not hesitate to contact me at the address above.

Signed blah blah

In other words modding the exhaust (removing a box counts) invalidates your insurance, unless you notify them.

The cat is another matter.! you cannot put a type approved motor
“built in the must have a cat years” on the road ……….unless you can prove like I did it was a hybrid built by the manufacturer, ps it took me 4 months to do it
Rest assured if you have a bad smash, the exhaust is one of the first things they look at …as it’s a very easy cost effective tuning part. They will just walk away leaving you with NO insurance .....Hope this helps Big Rich

So are suggesting is that ANY exhaust system other than a Mazda one (which would be the only one which was 'approved ' at manufacture ) would invalidate insurance ?
So all of the aftermarket stainless ones ( different CAT or none at all / bigger bore /flash -twin -square exhaust tips etc ) , ALL of which are not PRECISE approved copies of Mazda ones would not be acceptable to insurance companies .Hmmm

vanvliet wrote:So are suggesting is that ANY exhaust system other than a Mazda one (which would be the only one which was 'approved ' at manufacture ) would invalidate insurance ?
So all of the aftermarket stainless ones ( different CAT or none at all / bigger bore /flash -twin -square exhaust tips etc ) , ALL of which are not PRECISE approved copies of Mazda ones would not be acceptable to insurance companies .Hmmm

Ahh well that's all the pattern part manufacturers out of business then - thank God I sold my Partco and Brown Brothers shares.

My back box fell off on the way back from Silverdale. Sounds shhhhhwwwwweeeeeetttt. definitely more poke too. Will be getting round to fitting a stainless pipe soon.

Tony

Hi just use your common sense, picking bones on a factual comment isn’t the way to go, were talking about pulling a cat off ! and sticking a piece of flexi hose on or similar you cannot do it legally that is a FACT ,its gonna go faster as a cat strangles an engine ....thats why its called a performance exhaust.. fit in a lambda sensor ... you know the type that reports back to the ecu everything is tickty boo without a cat fitted! ( buy them off ebay) half the country would skip the cat on there first replacement bill, don't you grasp the concept that the insurance company are just looking for an excuse to walk away .... and remember any pattern part from a company or shop will afford some redress in a UK court, in some instances the pattern parts are as good if not better than dealer parts....... at least there is someone to sue!

ps I made no suggestion at all, that ANY exhaust system other than a Mazda one would invalidate the insurance please don’t put words in my mouth Hmmmmm

You made a comment about other parts of the exhaust system ie backbox ( the subject of this topic). I KNOW that taking a CAT off can be problematic