Hi, I'm new to the site just after some advice if thats OK?

[TheONEin10]

Hello every one as you know i'm new to the site and i was wondering if anyone can help me with regards to insurance.

The thing is i'm only 20 and im after a Galant VR4 type S "please dont laugh i am being serious, I fell in love with the car after a friends dad gave me a passenger ride in one, i also need a car more capable of cruising on the motorways because my punto horrible at it"
Ive priced up the cost of bying, taxing and fuelling one and im fine with that. The only problem is the men in suits at pretty much every insurance company ive tried, thay normally laugh me off the phone. /Grrr The only insurance quote so far that ive got any chance of affording is £2,850 TPFT, which i would pay if i end up with no other choice "thats how much i want" however paying this would probably mean the car would be sat on the drive with an empty fuel tank 6 days a week.

If there is any one who could help me with this problem I would be very grateful, Cheers and thanks for your time.
Excellent site and some absolutely beautiful cars by the way.

[Spirit]

Welcome to the forum and all I can say is good luck !

Where have you tried so far ?

Two main companies on here to try are Lifesure and Sky Insurance.

http://www.lifesure.co.uk/

http://www.skyinsurance.co.uk/

[Kieran]

Welcome to CVR-4!

You're gonna struggle for cheap insurance. Google for 'Sky Insurance' and give them a call, they're one of our club's recommended insurers and they might be able to help. The other one to try is Lifesure.

You might also want to consider a late-model Galant Sport. You get the VR-4 looks and nearly all the toys, but they're either a 2.0 or a 2.5V6 and as such are MUCH more insurance friendly. At 23 years old, I paid about £600 for my Galant GLS Auto (Jesus, have I really been here THAT long?! /help)

[Nutter_John]

age and location are against you , have you tried the following companyies

Sky insurance
A-Plan
Lifesure

But being honest and relaistic with you it is a group 20 car and your 20 with a max of 3 year no claims so you more or less are going to pay ****loads of money to them


oh yeah hello and welcome

[Kieran]

Google for 'Sky Insurance' and give them a call, they're one of our club's recommended insurers and they might be able to help. The other one to try is Lifesure.

...Or you could just click the links that Pete's provided! :embarasse /pan

[miller]

ooooh a tough one, welcome aboard anyways, have you thought of the V6 Sport version until you have a few more miles under your belt? Its how most of us got where we are today regards insurance.

Trust me as i speak as one who has been there and bought the 2k insurance. The novelty soon wears off and the reality what half that insurance cost could have got you hits in.
At the end of the day that Insurance quote is only TPFT and correct me if im wrong you cant build up and No claims on TPFT?

Sorry to be a downer on it, just my view.

Welcome aboard CVR4

Mike

[elnevio]

/Welcome2 to CVR4!

Mike, you still build up NC discount on third party only (or TPFT) insurance.

Agree with what the others have said really regarding an N/A V6.

However, pitslayer is 20 (correct me if I'm wrong Kyle!) - no doubt he will tell you that his insurance is like £5 a year or something! Although he lives in some weird quasi-country somewhere... :P

[valleyforge1]

Cant really point you in any direction other than ecoing what the guys have said above.

I can only suggest the 2.0 sport as that is what I have. Looks the business but is oviously lacking in power, still, gets me about and probably at a fraction of the cost.

I cant believe that insurance quote. TPFT, wow, Iam well out of touch.

Oh by the way welcome mate.

J.A.LEACH country eh

[pitslayer]

Right as someone who is 20 with a VR4 I can shed a lot of light on owning one at this age.
First of Insurance, unless you have driven high performance cars before no one will touch you for decent money, im with sky, but on my record i have mk1 golf GTi a galant V624v, 4.0 Jag, 3.7 Jeep. With 2 years no claims its £1155 TPFT,thats with Sky Insurance, however i live out in the sticks and my postcode is like a category A or B so really low, have to have a cat 1 alarm on it, and the car is either garaged at night or blocked in on the drive. You will realy struggle with insurance on one. When i took my policy out with sky they do ask what you have driven, before and they can probably check aswell....other thing to remember with TPFT, is if you bin it you dont get a pay out on the car and still have to pay for the insurance.

Running costs, you may have worked out in your head or on paper that you can rrun a VR4, if you have throw it in the bin after doubling that cost, you really dont realise how expensive these are to run, my monthly outgoings on the car it costs me about 300 quid a month maybe more. Then you have to go into the running costs properly as thats just fuel and insurance...
oil changes-4500k miles cost about 200-300 quid maybe more if you cant do it yourself, tyres on top of that, then you need to upgrade the brakes about 300 quid.....its going to cost me about 4k a year to run without insurance...Then parts arent cheap

Modifications, insurance companys dont like this to much, just to add a MBC to my car upto 10psi was £150 ontop of the policy

If you want my honest opinion on owning and running a VR4 at 20, dont bother they are brilliant cars but they just cost far to much to run. Ill be honest that buying a VR4 at 20 is probably one of the worst things i have ever done, you really do struggle to run it sometimes, I was lucky, i got a nice pay out from the police which basically paid for my VR4, if i hadnt got that money i wouldnt of got one.

Other things to take into consideration, this car is a liscence looser, its got alot of power, and it creeps very easily past 100leptons, if you dont respect that then certainly dont go for one.... If i were you, i would go with what everyone else has said, get yourself a nice V624v or V6sport to start off with, they are truly fantastic cars, ive owned 2, they are also fairly quick, and they are only group 14 insurance, get yourself a nice little V6 first and go from there, as that will give you some idea of running costs,(double it for a VR4 atleast) probably your best option

V6 is your all and better option, £1500 will buy you a good one, £1200 should insure it fully comp(again thats area mine was £800) will return 30+mpg not 15-25mpg, they may sound like numbers but you really notice it, V6 has less bit to break, cheaper to service, cheaper to run, and still excellent cars, wait till your 21 when your insurance drops a tiny bit

actually Nev im 20 and 3/4 years old so nerrrrr /lol (21 next month :( ....and no i couldnt be bothered to work out the correct fraction for it)

[TheONEin10]

Thanks for all the advice, i will try the insurance companys tomorrow and have a look into some of the sport models. I wont bother with lifesure though, im with them at the minute and there costing me £1500 to insure my 1.2 16v punto TPFT.

I'll let you know how i get on, Cheers

[miller]

OMG 1500 TPFT on a 1.2? See the trick is to get away from all the usual 'young lads' cars that attract a higher premium!

[Danj]

I agree with Miller - ive always gone for the obscure stuff - volvos and saabs seem to be really cheap to insure even the turbo ones, i had an 850r estate which had 250bhp that cost me £800 fully comp - was 22 at the time with a claim on it already.

[pitslayer]

My galant 2.5V6, 96, no mods on it, 12k miles valued at 1100, was about 900 quid i think it was, would of been 800 odd but put european cover on, as i was going abroad in it..... I would seriously go for a less powerfull galant at first though to get used to it, especially coming from a 1.2 punto which has about 15bhp, to 260bhp, that is alot of power, whilst there are faster cars out there evos etc the VR4 is not a car to be taken lightly...you cant go from a 1.2 punto to a 2.5V6TT overnight, unless you have a fair few miles behind your belt....going from my rather quick mk1 GTI to the galant was abit nerve racking, they are only 170bhp? but thats alot, you might not think its alot compared to VR4 etc, but at 20 with only punto experience is a lot. You need a fair bit of knowledge and common sense about you with a VR4, whilst 95% they are predictable in what they are going to do....
to put it into some sort of perspective
1.2 punto 0-60=14.34
2.5V6 Galant=7.2 (?)
so that takes half the time to get to 60 than the punto
VR4=5.9seconds
thats almost 10 seconds quicker to 60 than a 1.2 punto, obviously these are the bench figures

To be honest i have been tempted a few times ot buy a cheap V6 galant as a run around, same looks, slightly less performance, better mpg, cheaper insurance, and the noise the V6 makes is truly awesome, like a little caged ferrari

[apeman69]

A V6 Galant would be a good option, as stated by many above. They look, quintessentially, (not bad after a bottle of red wine eh....?) the same and you'll notice a BIG performance increase over your Punto. I had a 3 litre Renault a few years back which was only pumping out around 200BHP (which isn't far off a 2.5 V6 Galant). It was a big old boat but under acceleration it was pretty damn quick. What I'm saying is that you can get a great relative increase in performance over your Punto without 'throwing away' money on insurance. These days we are ripped off by insurance companies and the sad fact is that, at your age, you've got to play the game or you WILL be stung in the back pocket.
If you must have a VR-4 (and I don't blame you if this is your goal) then maybe give Quinn Insurance of Ireland a ring. I'm with them and paid the same last year as I did for my Celica GT4. One of my mates is 22 with a Starlet Glanza 1.3 turbo - his previous cars were a 1.6 Fiesta and a 1.4 Astra and he is paying a LOT less with Quinn than any other company he got quotes with. Worth a go maybe.
If you try the gocompare.com or moneysupermarket.com type of sites then be aware that once you do actually get to the insurance company that has 'given you a quote' you will need to satisfy yourself that the insurance is exactly as you require. I've been on these sites before and not been able to select a Galant/Legnum VR-4 from the company's vehicle database that has minutes earlier given me a very cheap quote.
Best of luck and I hope things work out in your favour.

[pitslayer]

to be fair he is paying £1500tpft on a 1.2 punto i cant see him insuring a VR4. If its 1500 for the punto then he has one or all of the following against him
points
accident(s)
Post code
from his location of manchester i guess it would be post code, as its only about half hour away from liverpool /lol /lol /lol

[sky insurance]

Hi,

Unfortunately the main factor with your high insurance prices is your Oldham - Manchester location.. as far as insurance goes, you couldn't live in a worse area!

Ollie
Sky Insurance

[Rambaud]

Right as someone who is 20 with a VR4 I can shed a lot of light on owning one at this age.
First of Insurance, unless you have driven high performance cars before no one will touch you for decent money, im with sky, but on my record i have mk1 golf GTi a galant V624v, 4.0 Jag, 3.7 Jeep. With 2 years no claims its £1155 TPFT,thats with Sky Insurance, however i live out in the sticks and my postcode is like a category A or B so really low, have to have a cat 1 alarm on it, and the car is either garaged at night or blocked in on the drive. You will realy struggle with insurance on one. When i took my policy out with sky they do ask what you have driven, before and they can probably check aswell....other thing to remember with TPFT, is if you bin it you dont get a pay out on the car and still have to pay for the insurance.

Running costs, you may have worked out in your head or on paper that you can rrun a VR4, if you have throw it in the bin after doubling that cost, you really dont realise how expensive these are to run, my monthly outgoings on the car it costs me about 300 quid a month maybe more. Then you have to go into the running costs properly as thats just fuel and insurance...
oil changes-4500k miles cost about 200-300 quid maybe more if you cant do it yourself, tyres on top of that, then you need to upgrade the brakes about 300 quid.....its going to cost me about 4k a year to run without insurance...Then parts arent cheap

Modifications, insurance companys dont like this to much, just to add a MBC to my car upto 10psi was £150 ontop of the policy

If you want my honest opinion on owning and running a VR4 at 20, dont bother they are brilliant cars but they just cost far to much to run. Ill be honest that buying a VR4 at 20 is probably one of the worst things i have ever done, you really do struggle to run it sometimes, I was lucky, i got a nice pay out from the police which basically paid for my VR4, if i hadnt got that money i wouldnt of got one.

Other things to take into consideration, this car is a liscence looser, its got alot of power, and it creeps very easily past 100leptons, if you dont respect that then certainly dont go for one.... If i were you, i would go with what everyone else has said, get yourself a nice V624v or V6sport to start off with, they are truly fantastic cars, ive owned 2, they are also fairly quick, and they are only group 14 insurance, get yourself a nice little V6 first and go from there, as that will give you some idea of running costs,(double it for a VR4 atleast) probably your best option

V6 is your all and better option, £1500 will buy you a good one, £1200 should insure it fully comp(again thats area mine was £800) will return 30+mpg not 15-25mpg, they may sound like numbers but you really notice it, V6 has less bit to break, cheaper to service, cheaper to run, and still excellent cars, wait till your 21 when your insurance drops a tiny bit

actually Nev im 20 and 3/4 years old so nerrrrr /lol (21 next month :( ....and no i couldnt be bothered to work out the correct fraction for it)

Excellent post, pitslayer. :thumbsup:

It might even tempt me away from a Legnum to a V6 Estate. :)

I would query the £200 for an oil change. What's wrong with National/ATS at ~ £40 for fully synthetic oil change? I have used ATS (Shell Ultra Helix, IIRC) for my GDI.

[stuey]

Have you considered moving ?

[miller]

he will now!

[pitslayer]

Excellent post, pitslayer. :thumbsup:

It might even tempt me away from a Legnum to a V6 Estate. :)

I would query the £200 for an oil change. What's wrong with National/ATS at ~ £40 for fully synthetic oil change? I have used ATS (Shell Ultra Helix, IIRC) for my GDI.


Amsoil oils and every 4.5k miles you need to do, engine oil and filter, gearbox oil and filter, rear diff oil

[Kieran]

Amsoil oils and every 4.5k miles you need to do, engine oil and filter, gearbox oil and filter, rear diff oil

You don't need to do that lot every 4.5k!

Change the oil and filter.
Change the AYC clutch fluid (This is recommended by Mitsubishi but every time I've done it it always comes out the same colour it went in as!)
Make sure there's 4 wheels on the car and nothing's falling off.

That's roughly what the 4.5K oil change service is. Even using amsoil and genuine Mitsu filters, you're looking around £80 tops. If you use a cheaper fully synthetic and a quality pattern filter (like a Blueprint) then it's cheaper still.

Admittedly, get it done at a Mitsu $tealership and yes, the first owner of my car got charged roughly £200, but then there were a few other bits and bobs done.

Rambaud - nothing wrong with the £40 oil changes per-se, just that the synthetic they use is probably a Hyrocracked Mineral "synthetic" rather than a proper Ester or PAO based synthetic oil, so you might find the oil doesn't last, or that at around 3,000 miles your lash adjusters start sending out the message "Change my oil please" in morse code....

[Ghost_2008]

Welcome to the club dude...... I have always liked the jap stuff and was into Honda's. If you are looking for something insurance friendly, a Honda Civic VTI-S 1.8, it makes about 169bhp and easily tuned to about the 190-200 mark with th right mods......

I own a VR4 Leggie now and the difference is absolutley massive, handling and power are astounding and you can add a bit of extra power for a few quid, or buy one with the right mods........ but as said before in the post if you look away from the speedo then say goodbye to your licence......... on the private race track last week racing a Merc, looked back at the speedo and 130mph...... very much a WTF moment......... it is very tempting to show up the cars on the road that cost twice as much (if not a lot more).............

Even though I love the car I dont really like the expense but I was fairly realistic when it came to the cost of running as I knew a member and owner before buying, but driving fluidly and consistantly are the key to good fuel consuption, I get about 150miles for about £40-45, based mainly in town and short tripes on A roads. On the motorway at 65mph I have managed about 250-300 miles on a full tank of about £65-70. My last oil change cost me £45, Mobile triple syn high performance oil and a filter for about £8, my tappets are finally satisfied and very quiet.

I'm 27 and live in relatively low crime rate area and the car is parked off road, I pay £800 for the year with Sky Insurance (and by far the cheapest) , mine is also a Jap import valued at £3500 with only small mods i.e; exhaust and wheels. I pay out about £200-£250 a month in fuel as I use the car as a daily run around and it is worth every penny.

When I was 20 there is no way on earth I could have afforded it, simply based on salery........... if you can afford it then go for it (cumfortably i.e; if anything goes wrong you can afford to repair) ...... if your boarderline (and maybe a little bit of wishfull thinking) I can afford it then I would prepare for some stress............. by no means am I trying to talk you out of buying one of these brilliant machines and I know I'm only echoing what most others have said already but you need to make an informed decision, the only thing worse than waiting would be buy one and not using it...............

P.S; for insurance if you dont have much luck with Sky etc try a local insurance broker, they might be able to get you a better rate locally.......... GOODLUCK

[HMG1K]

As peeps say here - go for the 2.0 Sport models. You'll notice a big power increase over your Punto, you'll have the soft VR4 looks, the refinement of a larger car, and enjoy, enjoy, enjoy all the way.

I started off on a 2.0 Galant when I was 19 - yes insurance was high for the time but nowhere like the near £2,500 for you on a VR4. That's the price of a decent Galant 2.0 Sport!!!

If you want to push the boat out get a 2.5 V6-24V - as some call it a soft VR4 - or a VR2! And if you get an Elegance (like the Sport but came after with looks the same, just leather added, then even more refinement. Looking at AutoTrader pricing there's a few hundred pounds between a 2.0 and 2.5 nowadays.

Good luck and welcome!

[HMG1K]

Heck, you can get some decent 2.0 Sport models for £3k on AutoTrader !

There's even a 2,0 2002 model for just over £2k where the last owner has put power seats in!!!

Seller is MJM CARS

[TheONEin10]

Hello again, ive decided to take pretty much all of your advice and im gonna go for the N/A V6. I've had some decent quotes for the Sport model so ive been looking at some over the weekend, is there anything major that i should look out for when lookin to buy?

Thanks again everyone

[pitslayer]

they are usually pretty sound cars.
check service history, specially see if gearbox has had oil done at least once.
check rear arches for rust
check all electrics work
start it from cold and listen for a tapping coming from engine, if you can hear a tapping, it needs an oil change soon
check it drives straight and true, no knocks from suspension, just usual stuff really
check theres no whine coming from the gearbox as this can be expensive if it goes but its quite rare....
mostly buy with your head and not your heart, there are some cracking examples out there, there are also some dogs like all cars....if you go and look at one, try and get a local member to go with you and check it over

[elnevio]

Mitsubishi still didn't do the greatest corrosion-protection job on the UK cars, so definitely, thoroughly check the rear arches for the dreaded rust, as well as the tops of the front suspension towers and around the bonnet shuts and seams generally.

I first got my V6 when it was nearly eight years old. The brakelines underneath the car (running front to back) were corroded, and the bottom pipe of the air con radiator was corroded. And the exhaust was corroded too. So try and get under the car and have a look there. Bear in mind however that my V6 is a 1997 car and the later versions had a few revisions/improvements.

Front suspension items can wear out, such as track rod end and suspension arms. Check for clunking and creaking when driving.

And the tappety noise from the engine is ok if it goes away after a few seconds after start-up. But if it stays, it will either be wanting an oil change as Kyle has said, or the lifters are wearing - although this is really just an annoyance rather than being serious.

Finally, the V6s can eat the brakes as Mitsubishi didn't really put standard brakes on that were up to the job of stopping the V6 under heavy braking without them overheating(!), so check for judder under braking - could be warped or heavily worn discs, otherwise they're not too bad.

Shouldn't have any probs with electrics, except the electric aerial perhaps being stuck or not going all the way down - but this is a relatively cheap replacement and fix.

HTH!

[TheONEin10]

Cheers for the advice, i'll keep it in mind.
I'll let you all know when ive bought one.

[pitslayer]

if you can try and get a member to go with you, we can all be paid in beer aswell, its nice to have someone knowledgable with you who knows the cars :)

[Turbo_Steve]

Additional Insurance advice:
Many insurers will give you a discount (small) if you sit a "Pass Plus" test.
Many insurers will give you a bigger discount if you sit an advanced Driving course (a bit expensive).
You will get even more credit if you can persuade someone to get you a Class 1 license, however this costs an absoloute fortune, takes a lot of training and will require you to be examined regularly.

[shaun1978]

another thing that can bring insurance down is driving works vehicles ( if you have no accidents)

As for the servicing I've just done mine with a good quality fully synthetic ester based oil and a blueprint filter £32 + £2.50 which i think is pretty good

[pitslayer]

driving works vehicle, makes naff all difference, I have 3 years no claims on the works vehicles, and as you cant transfer them, they make naff all difference. Pass PLus at 20 also makes naff all difference, its more for when your 17-19 after 20 pass pluss becomes useless as you have driven around for so long your expected to know whats what by then, again didnt effect my insurance, the only ones that made a difference on my insurance was Cat 1 alarm which i had to have, kept on private property, my area code....if you got a crap area code then there is little point trying to do a VR4...
I tried every which way possible to get insurance for my car
adrian flux and HIC i tried to avoid but they came out at £1900
Sky came out at £1155,
Keep in mind that I live way out in the sticks in a Category A or B postcode which is very good to live in for insurance

[elnevio]

Shaun's right, you CAN get recognition for claim-free driving on works vehicles.

I did exactly that, after having company cars for five years, with no claims in that period, Direct Line gave me a bonus of 5 years no claims, which by the following year was 6 years of transferable NCD.

[pitslayer]

Sky wouldnt let me do that because i would have 5 years ncd have my 2 personal ncd and the 3 on company vehicles, cant use your ncd on 2 policies.

[miller]

you can get recognition on driving working cars BUT NOT in combination with any personal driving, its one or the other


Mike

[pitslayer]

Sky said it wouldnt make naff all difference to my policy same with adding people likemy mum with 10 years ncd, and that i wouldnt get recognition for using works vehicles. All they wanted to know was what performance cars i had driven before