Motor insurance 'admin' charges [OT in uk.d-i-y]

[Nightjar]

My suggestion was that it could be done as part of a pre-winter service, which involves a lot more than that.

[Scott M]

I hear this a lot but I've always found it questionable. I buy middle of the road, ordinary tyres (Pirelli, Avon, Falken) and I've never found them to particularly go off when it gets colder. The other year, late at night, with my RWD car, wide 245 & 225 tyres, 2C (and had been cold all day), fairly damp road, I decided to see how quickly I could get round

3/4 (ie, on at 6 o'clock, off at 3 o'clock) of an empty medium/large roundabout without ending up in the hedge or the T/C waking up and taking charge (and no drifting, powerslides, etc)

Answer: somewhere around 45-50.

I struggle to see the need for much better grip!

[Adrian]

On Mon, 24 Nov 2014 10:21:03 +0000, Nightjar My suggestion was that it could be done as part of a pre-winter service,

Umm, what?

Apart from swapping to the winter tyres, none of my cars get any different attention for the season - because the fluids, wipers etc are all properly maintained all year around.

You've still got to either try to fit four wheels and tyres in the boot or pay somebody to store 'em all year, though.

[Capitol]

That's what the garage is for, the car stands on the drive!

[charles]

On hard packed snow is probably a better test

[Tim Watts]

Granted. Right now though I cannot be arsed sourcing more rims - I'll try it this way - never had winter tyres but have been annoyed previous years when trying to drive in the snow.

If it seems like it's worth it, I might get some steel rims next year to match. OTOH I might just leave the winters on all year - people do. Wear is not really an issue - my milage is low.

[Adrian]

I've found the biggest drawbacks are that grip drops off quite rapidly when it warms up, the ride is harsher, road noise is louder, and fuel economy drops.

[Theo Markettos]

Cause and effect. Price comparison sites are driving down the upfront cost of insurance, so it's all getting loaded onto fees behind the scenes. Changing the address can also mean reassessing your risk, if you move from a nice area into a dodgy one, so it's possible there's a change in premium - though I agree this doesn't cost £30 to type into the computer.

The other thing many people don't understand is you don't buy your insurance monthly, you buy an annual premium and they give you the option to take out a loan to pay it off over the course of the year. The loan is usually at a terrible interest rate (use a credit card instead if you can).

But the problem comes when something happens during the year: you sell the car, you have an accident. If you are due some refund through terminating the policy early, it's usually not on a pro-rata basis, so you get 4 months back but have to pay £75 cancellation fee, or whatever it is. If you had an accident you get no refund, as that's the point of insurance.

The majority of negative reviews on review sites are about people simply stopping the monthly payments, when they still have some outstanding balance on the annual policy due to the way it works above. That means they default on their loan with all the excitement that brings.

Theo

(just trying to decide between brand A, £20 admin/£55 cancellation and brand B, almost identical price, same underwriter, £30 admin/£75 cancellation but throw in free breakdown. Hmm...)

[Dave Liquorice]

Can't say I noticed lack of grip(*), harsher ride or more noise this summer on winter tyres. If anything fuel economy was 1 or 2 mpg better on the Vredstien Wintracs than the now Pirelli STRs.

(*) Until it was wet and the tyres barely legal but any tyre that worn has less grip.

[Chris Bartram]

It won't do 150 at any time :-)

[DavidR]

That's because a normal tyre doesn't fall off the edge of a cliff at 6.9C.

If the conditions allow 50mph there doesn't seem to be a question needing an answer. So that seems to cover roads that are cleared and salted.

There is some information at

Note that on ice, they are talking about 20mph. These tyres clearly don't turn winter into a normal day. (And for practical purposes, that difference is negligible.) Besides, that measurement would have been taken on dry ice (less than -2C), when the bigger problem, particularly in the SE (on roads not cleared and salted), is wet ice (around 0C).

So I don't how an improvement made on snow is meant to prove that anything is better when there isn't any snow.

[Dave Plowman]

In article , Nightjar Depending upon the car, you may need to be careful of speed ratings. My

True - I just lock my gearbox so it can't get above second.

[Roger Mills]

Absolutely. I was about to reply to Nightjar's post by saying "More to the point, you can do it yourself" - which is precisely what I do.

[Roger Mills]

My car lives in the (detached) garage, and the wheels/tyres not currently in use live in the garage attic.

[Nightjar]

I have the brakes, suspension and the multitude of electronic gadgets checked as well. As the wheels have to come off as part of that, there is no extra work involved in fitting a different set.

... or have a large enough garage to store them in. Mine is about 3 metres longer than is needed to park, even though I have a large estate car.

[Nightjar]

I suspect you would find the difference a lot more noticeable when it gets really cold.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

In article , Nightjar Part of the skill of DIY is knowing when to pay somebody else to do the

Far as I know, a computer isn't needed for a service. One may be needed to read any fault codes if present. But that comes under repairs.

[Nightjar]

The bloke who does my car plugs one in every time he does a service. Perhaps he is checking that there are no faults that I need to be advised of.

[Nightjar]

Must be nice to be young and agile. ISTR it.

[dennis]

On 24/11/2014 16:01, "Nightjar