Police Trouble-Changing Engine

First thing you might not want to do is go on a public forum saying that you are thinking of not telling the insurance about putting a V8 into your car.

Just won't pay out if they find out, which could be expensive if it was your fault as they will throw the small print at you and tell you that you are not insured. They will also note it on the insurance database which might make things hard and expensive when you want to get insurance in the future.

How big a slap?

I'd gladly give you one for what you're suggesting.

What Matt said, if the Police notice, then you're insurance will be cancelled, leaving a big black mark on your record that will effect your future premiums (and they ask "have you ever had insurance declined or cancelled", not "in the last x number of years..."). If you crash, there's a decent chance of finding your self in a large amount of personal debt, to put that in perspective, a friends brother is coming out the end of a long recovery from being a passenger in a 30mph crash, honest mistake by the driver resulted in brain damage, he's recovering well now, and pretty much his old self again, but half a decade of health care has caused a bill seriously close to £2000000, good job the drivers insurance checked out, it's very easy to rack up a debt you'll never pay off in this lifetime. Not worth the risk if you ask me.

It's also worth considering that at the end of the day, to obtain insurance through the use of false details is technically fraud, which is a criminal offence. It's unlikely to come to this unless you actually successfully get money out of the insurance company, only for them to then find out you lied about something, but if they do find out you've lied, then you never know how far they'll take it, but it's not going to be fun.

i wonder why the police have such a bad press?

I put a 3.0 V6 engine in my peugeot 205 when I was 19, I didn't declare the engine conversion to the insurance company.

ON THE VERY FIRST DAY I DROVE IT, the same day I insured, MOT'd and taxed it, I was stopped at the side of the road with a the bonnet up topping up the coolant and a police EVO pulled up behind me, he said my car was showing as uninsured. I could prove to him that I had MOT'd and taxed it that day so instead of seizing my car he gave me a producer for the insurance after asking if my engine was declared.

I did the producer as normal knowing they would find out it wasn't insured properly and a few weeks later I had a knock on the door from the same guy who stopped behind me.

Long and short of it is he said his options were to either give me 6 points on my licence (which I would then lose as I had been driving for less than 2 years) and a fine, or he could give me an official police warning. He decided to give me an official police written warning after several interviews, I thought I had got off lightly without any points or a fine, little did I know that a written warning means I now have a criminal record which stays on file for several years.

Lesson learnt I then insured the car correctly with ALL mods declared, it cost me £2500 for a years cover. Ironically in the year that it was insured properly I only covered about 60 miles in the car.

LESSON LEARNT - DON'T EVER TEMPT KARMA

ETA: The offence on my written warning was 'making a false statement to obtain insurance - FRAUD'

I'd just replace the clutch.

That made me giggle, I'm not sure if it was meant as a joke, but the timing/delivery in my head was perfect after all our long winded replies.

Yep, I'd probably just replace the clutch too, although declaring it may not be all that bad, my Passat was actually cheaper this year on a modified policy than I could get it insured as a standard car!