306maxi said:

You’re a plonker.

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This forum has rules, and personal insults/name calling fall foul of them. :nono:

If you must criticise, then criticise the behaviour, not the person.

I'd agree that fitting a non-conforming steering wheel without an airbag to a 500 intended for road use in the UK is an ill-advised thing to do. Since this is a public forum, visible to anyone with an internet connection, it's only right and proper to point out the possible consequences of doing this, in case someone else is tempted to make a similar modification.

Fitting a part which renders the car unroadworthy (and the MOT rules are quite clear about this) will almost certainly invalidate any insurance. In the worst case, if the car is involved in a fatal accident, then a prosecution for causing death whilst driving uninsured is a very real possibility, and likely to lead to a significant custodial sentence. The police investigation following a fatal accident is extremely thorough, and this thread could be produced by them in Court to counter any possible plea of ignorance of the law as a defence.

But if the OP decides to proceed with this in spite of what's been said, then that's their personal choice, and I respect that.

While I agree with most of the jrkitching post above, driving with a undeclared or illegal modification will NOT invalidate the road traffic act part of the insurance unless you have not paid and/or the policy holder has been informed that the policy has been cancelled. Thus you cannot be prosecuted for no insurance. The insurer also has to pay any third party claim BUT they can come after the policy holder to repay them anything pid out and their costs.
In the case of a fatlity you could be paying the rest of your working life.

But why would you risk your life for a "better" steering wheel?

Robert G8RPI.

Yeh, I kind of think the insurance thing might be the big problem. Last thing you want is to be paying of a humongous settlement for the the rest of your life because you invalidated your insurance.

g8rpi said:

... driving with a undeclared or illegal modification will NOT invalidate the road traffic act part of the insurance unless you have not paid and/or the policy holder has been informed that the policy has been cancelled. Thus you cannot be prosecuted for no insurance.

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Are you sure?

The strict liability of an insurer to pay a third party claim may not in itself be sufficient to protect you from a charge of driving whilst uninsured.

I know personally of someone who was stopped by the police driving home from work and successfully prosecuted for no insurance because, on changing insurers at renewal time, they had (unknowingly) only insured their car for social, domestic and pleasure use. Now if they'd been involved in an accident, the insurer would have had to pay any third party claim (albeit they could have reclaimed their costs from the policyholder), but that was not a sufficient defence against the no insurance charge, and the driver was convicted, fined, and given six points on their licence.

jrkitching said:

Are you sure?

The strict liability of an insurer to pay a third party claim may not in itself be sufficient to protect you from a charge of driving whilst uninsured.

I know personally of someone who was stopped by the police driving home from work and successfully prosecuted for no insurance because, on changing insurers at renewal time, they had (unknowingly) only insured their car for social, domestic and pleasure use. Now if they'd been involved in an accident, the insurer would have had to pay any third party claim (albeit they could have reclaimed their costs from the policyholder), but that was not a sufficient defence against the no insurance charge, and the driver was convicted, fined, and given six points on their licence.

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The case you descrbe is different because the driver never had insurance for the type of driving they were doing. There was no cover in force before they were stopped. This often happens to people who (sometimes unwittingly) use their car for work purposes. Having insurance cancelled or a claim disputed after the fact does not mean you didnn't have RTA cover at the time.

In the case you quote the police could look at the insurance certificate and see there was no cover.

I've had an insurance company try to pull this one on me. I was rear ended at a red light by another car and apart from the damage to my car a (very old) Tektronix microwave spectrum analyser in the boot was damaged. It was assessed as beyond repair and the list price of a new one was twice the cost of a brand new car (I'd paid abut £1000 for it not working and repaired it several years earlier). The other parties insurers said I must be a business user and wasn't covered. I pointed out it was part of my amateur radio hobby and was taking it to investigate a problem at a friends house. I was actully covered for business use under my own policy. The other party soon relented. I settled for a used spectrum analyser but it was still more than they paid out for the car which was also written off and much harder to replace (Renult 21 Turbo).

Robert G8RPI.