UKC

Just bobbed in to ask for a key copy; the chap there tells me its 50 Euros because theres electronic recognition as well as normal key tumblers. But I'm suspicous - anyone know the truth?

In reply to LeeWood:

Expect to be quoted £40 to £300+ for a new car key nowadays.

Shop around but 50 euros is probably a good deal.

I only buy cars now if they have two keys.

In reply to LeeWood:

50 euros sounds like a bargain compared to some.

No 2 son managed to break his key and threw away the 'little bit of black plastic' that fell out . He then wondered why his car wouldn't start and went pale at the price of a new key. Fortunately he was well trained and had thrown the little transponder thing in the bin so that once its absence and significance had been establihsed, he could go on an archaeological dig in the slime at the bottom of a big wheelie bin and restore his car to working order.

In reply to LeeWood:

£150 for my fiesta, much like Rick I have learnt my lesson, next car will have two keys or a big discount!

In reply to LeeWood:

Apparently a new key for a Nissan GTR is £850+VAT.

In reply to LeeWood:

I think by 'electronic reconition' they mean that the plastic key case that actually holds the key itself also contains and induction driven chip that the cars ECU wll verify before releasing the imobiliser. To make a key like this a blank chip needs to be programed with either the info from the manufacturer or by equiptment that can read the frequency from the old chip. All this techno gumph costs money I'm afraid!

In reply to LeeWood:

Thanks all. We had 2 keys but one of them sheared off. Now concerned that the 2nd might do likewise. Basically I was surprised that a car from the year 2000 had this sort of technology in it.

In reply to LeeWood:

I had to pull a barrel out of one of these about two month ago as it had seized, I then held the fob next to the sensor on the lock barrel and turned the switch behind where the barrel was with a screw driver, once started if didn't matter if the chip in the fob was next to the sensor or not and it ran fine.

They also do this when fitting chipped ecu's into cars with older barrels non chip, for example a 20v turbo mk4 golf gti engine into a mark 2, just tape the chip from the fob to the sensor ring and use the none coded key.

This is probably all irrelevant to your question, but i thought i should do some typing.

In reply to John Simpson:

sounds highly relevant: I've got the broken key somewhere - if I can get the cct out and attach it to a 'plain' key it would save some dosh

In reply to LeeWood:

That's alright then, there's often a lower cost diy fix to problems such as this.

In reply to LeeWood:

As John says, all you may need to do is tie the old key and a plain one together with a piece of string or key ring.

In reply to LeeWood:

Yeah, most cars made even vaguely recently will have a transponder in the key for the immobiliser, even if it isn't a remote locking type one. You need it to start the car, and overall it's a good thing because it has substantially reduced theft of (rather than from) cars. Expensive keys is just the price we sadly have to pay for it.

Neil