Was reading yesterday an article about mods on cars and while reading it I found out that everything done on the car are illegal! Even so they do sale in shops everything for ur car from exhaust system, light, Superships, bodykits..... Anyway those accessories are sold and therefore legal but if u get stop by the police they can still fine u even so its legal! How crazy is that? To stay "Legal" you should buy accessories from ur main car dealer! What accessories? they sold sh@t over here! no bodykit or anything else! what I'm suppose to do? even changing ur panel filter from a Ford to a KN filter its consider illegal! If u ever got a crash even if its not ur fault the insurance would not have to pay for the damage and could even cancel ur insurance policie! Really where is liberty! For all of u who live in UK are so lucky! can do anything u want with ur car and still be legal! Which I was living in UK!

babyboom yes it really is a pathetic law saying that any mods or accesories bought unless from a ford dealer are illegal which really means u have to keep ure st totally standard....or insurance may be nil and void u will have to move to england

Yes England country of freedom!! If u want to mod ur car basically only ur dealer is aloud to mods ur car! but for Ford its difficult has they don't do anything for the ST!

well there is a surprize

Babyboom England certainly isnt the land of freedom (i dont know where people are getting this idea from) We cant modify our cars unless our insurance companies know about every last detail. Some insurance companies will only let you modify 5 things on your car - so theres a limit. If we have a crash and its serious enough for the police to be involved, they search your car and compared to your insurance certificate if it differs we can come off a lot worse than a fine!

And talking of insurance over here theres an average of about 1 in 5 cars on the road arent even insured! so if you have a bump regardless of whos fault it is if, and regardless of what cover you have - theres bugger all we can do

I know what you mean babyboom but as Tony rightly put it there is always a law which somehow acts (either directly enforced by police or though your insurance company) that will limit the amount of changes you can apply to your car, But as frustrating this may be to the true enthusiast I think it's a good thing that the limit is there and is enforced as not everyone would be wise enough to only apply changes which remain within the boudaries of safety. Take as an example some bodywork elements which in case of a collision would not deform as "programmed" they could seriously injure someone or even cause someone's death... or even worse... think of someone "lightening" structural components of a car and having a failure of a key safety component... and as much as you may think this is highly unlikely it does happen. I witnessed a client of the garage I was working at who came for a quote for fixing his car which was "not driving straight" and guess what... His entire engine cradle was coming undone from underneath his car and after seeing the quote he even wanted to drive the car away unrepaired!!! Just some matter for thought...

I don't think most of the aftermarket bodykits are that safe, especially those chopped up and smoothed over with filler like you see on boy racer cars so I can see why French Police are tuff on it. I'm sure there are thousands of people who insure a standard car but is uprated in some way which is technically uninsured and they might not pay out in an accident to either party. In the UK, you can only really insure small power mods without the insurance going sky high.

Even try telling an insure campany over here you want to fit an exhaust - they go mental, we cant do anything to our cars- peaople that probably havent told insurance companies and therefore arent actually insured

If you fail to inform your insurance company on a modification to your car, then it could viod your insurance, but i don't think modifications such as chipping or performance upgrades are illegal.

If you have insurance, but haven't informed your insurance company, then techinically speaking it is deeemd as 'driving without insurance', but it's highly unlikley you'll be charged with that, it's only people who don't have insurance at all who get shopped with that.

Yup, you're never going to stop it until the penalties for not having insurance are greater than actually getting insurance.

I was watching a program on UK TV few years back and is was actually cheaper to pay the find than pay insurance! I think they should have heavy find and have they're car take away from them! But over its start to be the same more and more people are driving with no insurance!

Don't know what the laws are elsewhere but it certainly isn't illegal to modify your car in the UK. OK, so you should inform your insurance company of any mods, but you can of course be clever about this.....

1. Re-mapping the ECU is untraceable so don't inform your insurance company

2. You don't have to fit Ford parts are replacements to consumables, aftermarket panel filters are often cheaper than OEM and the same can be said for brake pads, discs etc. Obviously you can only push this one so far.... Don't go converting your braking system and expect to get away with it and you'd be pushed to get away with fitting an induction system . You could even argue that an aftermarket exhaust is cheaper than bying OEM, but you'd be pushing your luck fitting a full race system.

3. If you have bought a second hand car say that you were unaware of any modification work done by the previous owner.

I don't see what all the fuss is about.... with bikes there is no such thing as a "standard" model, everybody fits exhausts, uprate their brake pads and filters, chages their gear ratios etc and insurance companies aren't half as arsey...... I guess they just expect it!

over here its "illegal" to change any parts of a bikes but everyone doing it and no one care! Also they don't have to pass an MOT over here either! and because they got number plate on the back they almost never get caught if they get flash cos most of them speed camera only flash from the front! or if one flash from the back u wont be able to read the number plate cos there just too small!

Italy has the worst I think for the law on mods, on the one hand it makes sense in that the official stuff is crash tested etc etc while a modded car may well be a danger (unbalanced specs etc)

In the UK it is fine to change although clearly you cant make you car unroadworthy! As for telling the insurance company that also is completely fair as you have changed the risk profile!

Otherwise we would all buy a 1.25 and then mod it to the "RS" spec and not pay a penny more, even though the chance of us crashing, having it nicked, and the cost of repair etc has gone flying up we would still be paying a premium for a cheaper risk.

Insurance companies arnt stupid, and as they know so many people "cheat" (ie steal from those insuring at the correct price) they can employ people to assess losses, as the money saved by investigating claims easily pays the costs of the extra staff doing ther checking. Loose that car modded up and pray its never found, because if it is and the insurance people inspect it first, you might find they reject your claim and you end up with nothing plus a black mark against your name for your next quote.