Clio 172 owners

SeatIbiza · 6 Sep 2010 at 14:53

Soem of you might have seen I've sold the RS4. It goes next Thursday.

I have been looking at a cheap replacement and whilst I will hate the interior of the Clio it looks like it might be a bit of fun and most importantly cheap to run. However, the problem comes when I go for insurance.

For those of you who don't know my RS4 was modded to 420bhp with brakes all round, arbs, suspension etc. I paid £600 with bell for fully comp mods declared.

The same company want an EXTRA £56 to insure a car worth £2k with about 40% of the power. I expressed my shock and they proceed to tell me the RS4 is group 17 (WTF!!!) and the clio is group 29! I am baffled by this but can only assume it's to do with the "typical" owner being young and many of these cars being involved in insurance claims...

Whilst I know the money is insignificant I am rather galled to pay more to insure a moderately warm hatch than a full out super estate. I thought I'd get a refund on almost anything I chose!

Woe is me! Do i take it on the chin or look for something else?

SeatIbiza · 6 Sep 2010 at 15:09

I probably will but I am still in shock!

haha yeh yeh - i meant uprated brakes and suspension all round

SeatIbiza · 6 Sep 2010 at 15:15

Dogbreath said:
They are taking the weewee, insurance groups only go up to 20. The RS4 is 20 and the Clio 172 is 16. Ring them up again and ask to speak to the person who currently has the departmental brain cell.

Are you sure? The revised groups go much higher.

But in any case there is no way an RS4 should be 12 groups lower than anything. I would have thought it's near the top...

Insurance quote on comparison sites are coming out about £150 more as well...

SeatIbiza · 6 Sep 2010 at 15:18

http://www.thatcham.org/abigrouprating/index.jsp?page=343

RS4 = 39
clio = 31

So she was wrong on several accounts and that forgoes her explanation of why it costs more to insure.

I am now more baffled

SeatIbiza · 6 Sep 2010 at 15:21

Dogbreath said:
Oops, I'd forgotten about the revised groups . Nice of Parkers to have an article on this but not actually bother to put the revised groups their database...

Irrespective, the RS4 will be in one of the top groups, the Clio will not.

You say this but read my post - clio is 31 which i find amazing.

Must be due to many claims from that car?

SeatIbiza · 6 Sep 2010 at 15:27

Havana_UK said:
Strange indeed...have you done the obligatory shopping around for insurance? I'm surprised the insurance is that expensive on the Clio, let alone the fact that they want to charge you more than you pay for the RS4. Sometimes this is an insurance company's way of tell you they don't want your business any more...

Bell were the cheapest by far for the RS4 coming in at £600ish. I ahve done a quote through them and a quote through confused.com

Both came in at around £750 or there abouts.

I was fully expecting £400 or so?

Add the £56 to my current policy for the remainder of the term (april '11) and I guess it's about the same - bit less maybe.

SeatIbiza · 6 Sep 2010 at 15:46

Havana_UK said:
The only insurance feedback I can give you on the car, which I had as a company car when I was 23, was that the company who provided our group insurance originally refused to insure me on it, as they would normally only insure drivers over 25.

Eventually they agreed to allow me specifically to drive it as an under 25, but anyone else in the business who wanted to use it would have to be 25 or older.

Not a great deal of help I know, but it was a high insurance group, and there's always the possibility that your current insurer cocked up your price but had to honour it?

This is possible but other quotes weren't much higher. Say £750-800.

I'm not young anymore really, I ahve 2.5 years experience of driving a very fast car and have got 3 years ncb. I live in London which doesn't help but the car is garaged all day every day and i do no more than 6-7k a year. I am a low risk driver really.

Sigh.

SeatIbiza · 6 Sep 2010 at 16:02

G J said:
Correct me if i'm wrong but doesn't the 172 have the rep for attracting the boy racer type?

Might be the reason why the insurance is abit more.

Also some 172's are getting very cheep to buy now.

Well yeh this is the only reason I can think that the insurance is so high on them. A shame really.

They are very cheap to buy...I will still probably do it but I just wanted to vent my anger/annoyance at hte stupid insurance system!

SeatIbiza · 7 Sep 2010 at 07:50

Dogbreath said:
It's a fairly high performance car. 31 would be equivalent to old group 15/16; my old Astra GTE was group 15 and the Clio is definitely quicker than that. FWIW I was considering getting a 172 recently, and it was cheaper than my group 16 Fiat to insure.

It really isn't a "fairly high performance" anything.

I am sure the insurance grouping of this car comes from a) it's ease of theft b)it's attractiveness to thieves and c) it's general stereotypical owners.

I also suspect that having looked to buy one, most are ooop north and this possibly adds to the insurance issues (although is that worse than London?)

The RS4 goes next Thursday, I'm in Spain for a week from the Friday and then i will need a car. I might have to look elsewhere but it took me long enough to settle (begrudgingly) on the clio...

I did think about going back to an ibiza cupra but I worry they have the same problem now considering these can be had for similar money.