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Black box insurance opinions?


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Wondering what peoples thoughts are on blackbox insurance?...

Never had it but could save me a bit of money on my next car/current car. Dont drive like a tube but do step on it sometimes for the odd overtake/bit of fun. 

Is it worth it for the sake of 3/400 quid? 

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Me personally I'd rather pay the extra or choose a different car than have a black box.

I don't trust the way they're fitted or the invasion of privacy.

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On the black box insurance I used to use they measured speed, acceleration, braking and cornering. They'd give a discount depending on how well you drive. 

On my previous car I had a black box. It was a 1 litre so accelerating wasn't hard that I ever got messages about improving my acceleration..... Till I changed the clutch 🤣. 

I've found that if your in places with cars about you'll won't really worry about the box. If you're in areas that are quiet occasionally you might get some knobs driving a little over the speed limit and come up behind you. Braking I found annoying. If I had to brake hard because of a hazard I would get a 'needs improvement' message thus my discount would go less. 

Now with my fiesta I can drive without worry. Only thing I'd say I would not do if I had a black box in this car is accelerate hard. 

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I had one. They kept sending me messages saying somethings wrong with it even once the policy finished. Just goes to show how they still track you.

I wish I "accidentally" blew the inline fuse for it, I'd get a month black box free (it took 2 weeks for them to notice it wasn't working, another week of letters every other day so I'd guess another week before they came out and fixed it).

After taking mine to bits I found out the threats of them knowing you've tampered with it is utter rubbish. The only reason they knew was because the battery inside died so you could easily swap it over/ hook it up to a 12v supply elsewhere and they couldn't tell. From my basic electrical knowledge, I couldn't find any sort of sensor that would detect movement (like a ps4 controller does) so I assume mine went on GPS only.

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20 hours ago, Luke4efc said:

I had one. They kept sending me messages saying somethings wrong with it even once the policy finished. Just goes to show how they still track you.

I wish I "accidentally" blew the inline fuse for it, I'd get a month black box free (it took 2 weeks for them to notice it wasn't working, another week of letters every other day so I'd guess another week before they came out and fixed it).

After taking mine to bits I found out the threats of them knowing you've tampered with it is utter rubbish. The only reason they knew was because the battery inside died so you could easily swap it over/ hook it up to a 12v supply elsewhere and they couldn't tell. From my basic electrical knowledge, I couldn't find any sort of sensor that would detect movement (like a ps4 controller does) so I assume mine went on GPS only.

Yeah, there is no way to tell that you have tampered with it unless they hooked the opening mechanism up to the control board movie bomb style! 

I am pretty sure they use on board tri-axis accelerometers since most of them can tell when you are braking or cornering aggressively. Even if you were looking for one I am not sure you would find a modern MEMS accelerometer:

rcj_mCube_.png.ee235266fa9d24e0aa1c85027e035f4d.png

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I have heard stories of them damaging your ecu as its plugged into the OBD socket in your car!

Watchdog did a show on it!

 

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1 hour ago, Nikstryker said:

I have heard stories of them damaging your ecu as its plugged into the OBD socket in your car!

Watchdog did a show on it!

Again depends who you're with. Mine was only wired to the fuel pump power so don't see how it would effect the ecu.

On 18/01/2018 at 2:37 PM, dansallis said:

Yeah, there is no way to tell that you have tampered with it unless they hooked the opening mechanism up to the control board movie bomb style! 

I am pretty sure they use on board tri-axis accelerometers since most of them can tell when you are braking or cornering aggressively. Even if you were looking for one I am not sure you would find a modern MEMS accelerometer:

rcj_mCube_.png.ee235266fa9d24e0aa1c85027e035f4d.png

I can't remember exactly what everything looked like now. I'll have to dig it back out again. I was thinking they would use those accelerometers to detect if the box had been turned upsidedown or something and then say you'd tampered with it.

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Yeah its usually plugged into the obd port in America but some UK insurers are doing it now.

OBDII interfaces with the Ecu and I have personally seen the cheap bluetooth ELM327 damage the ecu!
If you have ever played about with remapping you will know there is a certain item on eBay that allows you to crack the ecu and allows you to perform changes for all manner of illegal and immoral purposes.

From the Watchdogprogram it seems they provide a lot of false info with some people featured in the program losing their insurance through no fault of their own.
Who knows but I wouldnt have one fitted - a dashcam though I have no problem with!

 

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2 hours ago, Nikstryker said:

I have heard stories of them damaging your ecu as its plugged into the OBD socket in your car!

Watchdog did a show on it!

 

Thank god I don't have it in my car. On my previous car I had it installed and it was okay. Lol back then my dad said he could try removing it and putting it on his bike so it would look like I'm doing 20mph and not heavily cornering and braking 😂 

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Black boxes plug into the OBD so they can monitor everything the car does.
They also have a GPS antenna for speed and location plus a gprs/3g antenna to transmit telematic data to your insurer.
They invariably draw the majority of their power from the OBD with a fusetap for back up so unplugging the OBD alone doesn't deactivate the box but doing so will obviously invalidate your insurance policy.

Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk

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