Car insurance quotes

"Twingo Tamer - About to descend into project car hell." (oppisitelock)
05/08/2014 at 09:54 • Filed to: None

Simple 68hp diesel skoda considerably more to insure than larger, more complex 100hp petrol renault. Makes sense...

DISCUSSION (34)

KirkyV > Twingo Tamer - About to descend into project car hell.
05/08/2014 at 10:04

Don't question it; you'll go mad with frustration. I've been trying to understand car insurance quotes for a few years now, and it never starts making sense.

Milky > Twingo Tamer - About to descend into project car hell.
05/08/2014 at 10:09

How do you drive a car with that little HP? I've ridden in a few low hundred horsepower cars and getting on the freeway is a 4-5000 rpm spectacle every time.

Kinja'd!!!

Twingo Tamer - About to descend into project car hell. > Milky
05/08/2014 at 10:10

In the UK half the car on the road have less than 100hp, that skoda is powerful compared to what my gf drives.

KirkyV > Milky
05/08/2014 at 10:13

You just... Do? I don't know, pretty much everyone in Europe's driven something like that at one point or another, and we typically don't have any problems, even on roads with 80+ speed limits on the continent. It's just a matter of what you're used to, I suppose: my car had 59 HP when new, and I'm fairly positive it's making significantly less than that now, and yet I never have any trouble driving on the motorway, overtaking and such.

Personally, I've never understood why Americans need so much power, but then, as I said, it's all a matter of what you're used to.

Milky > Twingo Tamer - About to descend into project car hell.
05/08/2014 at 10:18

I just read a magazine article that stated the average of cars sold in America has something like 276hp. #HoorayCheapGas #Sorry

Twingo Tamer - About to descend into project car hell. > Milky
05/08/2014 at 10:20

Most powerful car I've driven on the road had 120hp, most powerful in my family has 150hp. Just the way of things here.

Milky > KirkyV
05/08/2014 at 10:22

I guess you're right, we're just used to big engines and cheap gas. Also if the world knows one thing about Americans its that we couldn't care less about what we "need", we're too busy thinking about what we want.

Sorry for using all of the gas :/

KirkyV > Milky
05/08/2014 at 10:24

Ah, but this is the average transmission:

Kinja'd!!!

And the average weight of cars over there is almost double what it is here.

JGrabowMSt > Twingo Tamer - About to descend into project car hell.
05/08/2014 at 10:24

Is it a car that gets stolen often? I know here in the states that can affect insurance prices by a huge amount. I just bought a dodge magnum (for you it would be the 300C Touring), and the insurance is peanuts compared to the Dodge Charger, which is one of the most stolen vehicles in this country. Despite being extremely similar cars, the theft rate makes a massive difference.

KirkyV > Milky
05/08/2014 at 10:30

We spend plenty of time thinking about what we want, too... It's just, generally it's not masses of power. Most people - and this is true of everywhere, really - buy cars as appliances, and if you know a certain amount of power will do the job - as pretty much everyone in Europe does, since we all start out in small, low-power hatchbacks - then you'll generally just go with that.

Personally, I'd like a fair bit more power... But not at the expense of too much weight, or handling, or a manual transmission. Thanks to the nature of our roads - windy and narrow - you're far more likely to be able to have fun with a small, low-powered car that handles, than a large, high-powered car that doesn't handle as well. It'd be nice to have both, of course.

spanfucker retire bitch > Milky
05/08/2014 at 10:30

It's called an on-ramp? My Mazda3 has only got a 150hp, but I've never felt wanting when accelerating up to highway speeds.

'Murican here, by the way.

Twingo Tamer - About to descend into project car hell. > JGrabowMSt
05/08/2014 at 10:32

It's possible, they're used mostly as taxis so plenty of demand for cheap parts. Probably explains it.

davedave1111 > Milky
05/08/2014 at 10:37

Yeah, you rev the nuts off them in each gear to get up to highway speeds as fast as possible, and that's about it. Slightly more looking ahead and planning is necessary, but generally even really slow cars accelerate quickly enough to something close enough to highway speeds not to be dangerous - especially if you use the on-ramp well. Most on ramps are long enough that even if it takes you 10 seconds from 30 to 60, you still have the distance to do it in if you're doing 30 at the start of the ramp, and normally you can get onto it faster anyway. (I think a lot of our roads are better planned than some of yours.)

Also bear in mind that when you join a main road you don't have to get up to the same speed as the traffic immediately. Getting to 50-60ish when the slower traffic is doing 65-70 is fine, you're not going to be going so slowly as to cause an accident as long as you pulled out into a reasonable gap. Slow cars tend to be geared to get to at least fifty as soon as possible, and then are slower after that.

davedave1111 > Twingo Tamer - About to descend into project car hell.
05/08/2014 at 10:38

Yup, it's the minicab thing. Pushes rates through the roof on anything popular with cabbies. Not because of being stolen for parts, just because minicabs have lots of accidents.

Milky > Twingo Tamer - About to descend into project car hell.
05/08/2014 at 10:40

Damn, the least powerful car I've owned had 190hp. But the flip side to that is the best mpg's I've ever got from a tank of gas is 27. Soooo …. yea, there are positives and negatives to both.

Twingo Tamer - About to descend into project car hell. > davedave1111
05/08/2014 at 10:40

Never really considered that but it makes sense, will have to make sure I avoid cars used as taxis then. Shame since they're easy to find and a little cheaper to buy, not enough to justify the insurance though.

davedave1111 > Twingo Tamer - About to descend into project car hell.
05/08/2014 at 10:40

It has to do with average accident rates, so if the demographic that usually drives the car crashes a lot, it'll have higher quotes. Age of the cars can also be a significant factor.

It's also possible there's a mistake somewhere, because every now and again you run across a vehicle that has been typoed in the insurance database. I found one a while ago where the thing was so light that someone must have thought the weight in lbs was the weight in kilos, so all the quotes were ridiculously high for what it was.

anonsagainstanonymous > Twingo Tamer - About to descend into project car hell.
05/08/2014 at 10:41

I recently bought insurance. I had to fiddle for hours with the quotes, because I seemed to be getting worse and worse prices. Turns out the fewer miles I chose, the more expensive it got. Not per mile. Total. I found the cheapest price was at 8000 miles. The same, only opposite, applied to voluntary excess.
Originally I had put excess high and miles low to get the cheapest price. Because that makes sense in my head. That sounds logical. Insurance is not logical.

The price nearly doubled when I went from complete coverage to third party as well.
/immigrantproblems.

davedave1111 > Twingo Tamer - About to descend into project car hell.
05/08/2014 at 10:42

Well, it's always worth running a quote anyway, once you have your details - with a made-up name, email address, and phone number, I hope - in the comparison sites. But yeah, if you look at something and think 'minicab', it's likely to get high quotes.

Milky > KirkyV
05/08/2014 at 10:43

I will concede I hate our roadways, straight and loooonnngg everywhere. I have to go out of my way to drive on a nice curvy road.

Also just like our bodies, our cars are fat, er … I mean big boned or husky. Whatever we're calling it these days.

Milky > spanfucker retire bitch
05/08/2014 at 10:45

Well obviously. Just seems weird to me because I've never had to go above 3k rpms in anything I've owned. The low HP cars I have ridden in, I think had something like 130. So 68hp just seems crazy to me.

Twingo Tamer - About to descend into project car hell. > anonsagainstanonymous
05/08/2014 at 10:46

I've already found the 8000 mile trick haha seems to be where they want it. Third party is more for me too and I'm born and raised here so just seems to be the trend. I use a £500 voluntary when I get quotes.

anonsagainstanonymous > Milky
05/08/2014 at 10:48

I don't know if maybe you American fellows drive on molasses or something, but 70 hp TD in a small car can be quite spiffy. Then again I guess "small cars" and "America" generally don't mix.

(Also it must be noted that distances tend to be fairly short over here. And Europeans generally don't think of cars as luxury objects or comfortable furniture.)

spanfucker retire bitch > Milky
05/08/2014 at 10:48

I agree on the 68hp. There's no way I could deal with a car that only has double-digit power numbers. That's just too low for me. Especially since it means I'm probably in some awfully tiny sub-compact that I can barely squeeze into.

No thank you.

Twingo Tamer - About to descend into project car hell. > davedave1111
05/08/2014 at 10:48

I've found some strange quirks myself, such as insurance on a civic being ten times that of any other hatchback. Civics arent riced nearly as much as corsas and clios so it isnt the demographic.

anonsagainstanonymous > Twingo Tamer - About to descend into project car hell.
05/08/2014 at 10:50

So it wasn't just me then. I guess it makes sense to someone somewhere.

Twingo Tamer - About to descend into project car hell. > Milky
05/08/2014 at 10:52

My girlfriend's 1 litre 50hp car gets barely 35mpg and it was even worse before i changed the plugs, so it's not all that good...

Twingo Tamer - About to descend into project car hell. > anonsagainstanonymous
05/08/2014 at 10:54

I doubt anyone understands it other than the computer that calculates the prices.

davedave1111 > Twingo Tamer - About to descend into project car hell.
05/08/2014 at 10:58

Civics are driven by people who hate driving, a lot of the time. Maybe that explains it.

If you got those quotes from the same insurers who are usually cheapest for you, that's a sign that for some reason the car is particularly expensive to insure. If you don't see the normal cheap quotes and only get expensive ones it's a sign that for some reason that particular combination of vehicle with your details isn't covered by regular insurers. And sometimes it's just the comparison site being broken for a few hours, so double-check all the anomalies :)

Twingo Tamer - About to descend into project car hell. > davedave1111
05/08/2014 at 11:01

I think I'll just keep getting quotes on each car I look at as I shop and see what happens. It's likely I'll pull all my hair out in frustration, especially if I find something I like and its randomly expensive.

davedave1111 > Twingo Tamer - About to descend into project car hell.
05/08/2014 at 11:05

That's pretty much what you have to do even once you have an idea of how things generally go, because you never know when you'll find an oddity. And yes, it's extremely frustrating at times.

duurtlang > Milky
05/08/2014 at 11:13

My old mk2 Golf had 54 hp, after two decades probably considerably less. I could still merge on the highway without revving it over 4k. And yes, the speed limit at our highways is 130 km/h (81 mph). Proper infrastructure layout helps a lot.

I do have to admit the car was less fun with four adult guys and their luggage inside while driving on an unrestricted German Autobahn, especially on an incline. No left lane for me that day.

KirkyV > davedave1111
05/08/2014 at 11:15

I encountered a fairly odd - and incredibly irritating - phenomena a little while back: I was looking around for insurance quotes, and discovered that I could get insured on a 106 GTi - a car I'm very fond of - for less than a thousand pounds, with decent quotes from multiple insurers. A few weeks later, I checked again and - with absolutely nothing about my personal information or circumstances having changed - all the quotes were up in the £2000s. What's more, a few cars that I'd been seeing £600-700 on, were suddenly hovering around a thousand.

davedave1111 > KirkyV
05/08/2014 at 11:34

That's an odd one. My first guess would be that you had changed something and not noticed, unless you're absolutely certain not. I've done that a few times and then later found some minor detail that I hadn't noticed.

If not, I wonder if a cheap insurer left the market, and all the others put their prices back up or something.