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I've had my Nissan Navara for 6 years now and yesterday the Battery died. No problem.
On removal of the battery I found a performance box, attached to the side of the battery, by velcro, so it's obviously not factory fitted.
I had no idea that it was there.
I do get higher mpg than most other Navara's but I just thought everybody else had a pile of lead in their right boot.
Every time I've renewed my insurance I've mentioned the Snugtop as the only non factory fitted item.
I'm assuming I need to tell them?
Your insurance could well be invalid if they find out about it should you decide not to tell them. Not sure how they'd find out, but hey ho.
It's worth getting insurance quotes for your type of vehicle with and without using a number of sources to see just how much the premium increase could be. Many modifications seem to increase risk in the eyes of insurers.
Are you sure it's doing anything at all?
I'd hazard a guess it's doing diddly squat.
Technically you should tell them, having worked in the insurance industry. We would usually charge you a small extra premium to cover any claims if the device was spotted, but it usually wouldn't be!
Contary to popular believe, insurers do not try and get out of paying claims for things like this.
I'm currently on a limited mileage policy on one of my vehicles, if I exceed it, my premium stays the same, but if I have a claim my excess is slightly more depending on the mielage.
Best advice is to give your current insurers a call and let them know, it most likely won't increase your premium on a vehicle such as yours. If it does it will only be a few quid.
Or take the box off and see if you can tell the difference
Your in a difficult position as you don't know what it is. Think before you do anything that's your first port of call as the insurer will want specifics.
Insurers aren't allowed to avoid a claim on a personal (ie non commercial) policy for a breach of conditions which is immaterial to the loss. They used to be able to, but were made to stop in the 80s (?). The classic example is not paying for theft loss on a contents policy because you didn't have window locks fitted as per wording, despite the fact they came through the front door.
So you can think of plenty of incidents where you wouldn't have an issue, because the loss could have nothing to do with a little box under the bonnet - car being stolen, window smashed for the stereo, plenty of crashes.
But possibly a few incidents where they could argue a link - fire in the engine bay, traced to an electrical fault in a mysterious box. Power delivery interrupted leading to a crash.
I'd be doing a little googling about the box, there's a decent chance it's doing nothing or next to nothing, in which case best get rid of it anyway. Good chance it's got a couple of resistors and a dozen placebos in it. Some do nothing at all apart from adding an extra thing to go wrong.
Re insurance, my understanding is that it can't "invalidate" your insurance, nor cause problems with unconnected claims. But, there's still the potentially messy issue of having made a false declaration to your insurers, which is its own offence.
Having owned a modded car, it became more and more of a liability. 10 years ago the modifications just meant a 20% rise in premium. Within 5 years half the mainline insurers were refusing to even quote for tuned cars and I ended up paying a 100% premium. The last couple of years I had to go through specialist brokers.
Personally, I'd get rid of it.