Fuck you Ford. $120 for a new key?

The BBQ Pit
1

I just bought a used truck, and it only had one key. So I went to the local hardware store to get a copy made. No can do said Mr. Key makin’ man, this has a chip in it, you have to go to the dealership. Okay, I can make it after work. How much could it be? So I go to the service center, and the guy at the counter says since I don’t have two copies of the key, the truck has to be reprogrammed!??! So I go out to the service bay, and after being ignored for the obligatory 15 minutes I get the pleasure of talking to the service ass who oh-so-condescendingly lets me know that the reprogramming will take at least an hour at $85 per, and that doesn’t include the price of the key.

What a fucking scam.

2

Mine was 50 for the standard or 125 for the fancy at the dealership. It is a 15 year old BMW.

3

I save that much every year on my insurance for having an anti-theft device. You might consider looking into that, if you haven’t already.

4

Now I know why the car manufacturers are in trouble – they treat customers like SOBs.

5

NurseCarmen, did you buy the truck at that dealership? If not call another Ford dealership and ask for the service manager. Tell him that you have been quoted a price for getting a key made for your (insert year, make and model here) and you thought it was a bit high. Ask how much they charge for it. Tell him that you bought the truck elsewhere but would like to have the truck serviced at a dealership if you are treated right. Try to leverage your future business.

If you did buy the truck there, call your salesperson and see if you can get him to give it to you or get it at a reduced price.

We do have some keys at our dealership (not Ford) that cost us $85 and up just for the key. These are indeed the chipped keys. It should take no more than 15-20 minutes to program a key. But $100 for a chipped key is not unusual. I hate you got treated badly though.

6

Little pricey, yeah. But I’m not buying the line that they have to re-program the truck. I lost the key to my 2002 Windstar in September, and had a mobile locksmith come out and make me a new one on the spot. When I found the key several weeks later, it still worked.

7

I bought a “certified pre-owned”, yadda yadda, (used car) BMW about 5 years ago, and it came with two sets of keys with microchips. I’ve used one set for all these years, and the other set has been in the kitchen drawer as a backup. Recently, I had occasion to need the backup set and found that they’re the keys to the wrong car. It’s not that the chip isn’t programmed, it’s that the physical key is wrong; it won’t even turn in the lock. I called the dealer and I can’t remember how much it was going to cost to get new ones, but it was enough to make me say I’ll wait until I really can’t find my main set (as opposed to my wife just taking them to work with her accidentally). And of course, there’s no way they still have the correct set of keys sitting around 5 years later. Grrr.

8

Try it sometime with a VW - we ended up paying some $800. Absolute refusal from the dealership to do anything without reprogramming the car. Funnily enough it worked just fucking fine until we lost the existing key. Wankers

9

My Dodge Neon has keys with chips in them. They cost me around $13.00 for a new programmed one. Why do the ones from other manufacturers cost so much?

Edit: I just realized in the op most of the cost appears to be labor. The dealership I got mine at doesn’t charge me labor for programming the key, just the key itself.

10

I paid about as much for my CRV key in the Dominican Republic. It didn´t take more than 20 mins. though, and part of that was waiting.

11

I had to replace a key for my Hyundai; IIRC, it cost me close to $150.00 total. It was like $75.00 for the key and $75.00 labor for the reprogramming, which took all of ten minutes. As I drove away, I could all but hear the service writer, the parts guy, and the mechanic laughing. That has been the only really negative experience I’ve had with that car but it completely changed my opinion of Hyundai.

Our Scion Sa doesn’t have the chip key, which I don’t find particularly annoying, and they gave us three keys when we bought it, just in case we lost one.

12

That’s outragious! This kind of shit should be illegal.

What the hell are doing that takes an hour of labor? It’s just clear extortion from shit faced scum bag dealers.

13

Look on ebay. I have a GM but I just got the keys for under 10 dollars and on my car all the reprogramming is is putting the new key in the car right after starting the car with your current key. The directions should be in your owners manual but my key came with instructions.

All you have to do is get it cut at any key place.

14

Yep, went through that awhile back for an import. It was $350. For shame.

15

My Dodge requires two working keys to reprogram a third, and it’s only slightly more complicated than just putting the new key in after using the existing one.

16

Former service advisor for Ford, Landrover and Mercedes checking in.

The fact that keys NEED to be reprogrammed to the vehicle is not the fault of the dealer. Vehicles today have an increasing amount of software and electronics, and the ignition system is just another part of that. Keys no longer just turn in an ignition barrel, they also send and recieve vehicle specific data from the relevent control units in the vehicle itself. For the same reason you would not want the same cut of key to start any Range Rover, so you cannot have the same programming codes on every key produced. Ergo, they need to be programmed to the vehicle.

The process of programming keys is often quoted as a “ten minute” job, but this is not always the case. Generally the technician hooks the vehice up to the required computer terminals, and runs the required programs to align the key to the vehicle. It is extremely common that this program will need to be repeated multiple times. Why? It will take a better electrician than me to answer that question, but anything involving those control units can be very twitchy. So in my experience, I have seen keys programmed in 10 minutes, and keys that took over an hour (Mercedes Vito vans were particularly annoying IME).

In any workshop I worked, we set a fixed fee for reprogramming keys, generally set at about one hours usual labour rate. Bear in mind that most dealerships will charge you for the first hour regardless of why the car is there (for justifiable reasons). Also bear in mind that the reprogramming still requires an trained dealer techician. You are paying for his expertise, whether it is for programming a key, or for repairing problems in the gearbox or instrument cluster.

As to the price of the physical key itself, I believe that is fixed by the manufacturer. I dont believe any dealership makes much profit on them, and I do know that the cost price of the key has rocketed in the past few years.

A common situation I faced was a customer who would buy a key from our parts department, then indicate total outrage that we in service would be charging more money if he wanted it programmed. Sorry sir, but if you bought brake pads, would you expect us to fit them for free? If you bought a steering rack, should the fitting be free? Programming keys is an equivalent situation, however much you might protest otherwise.

To anybody complaining about the cost of programming keys, do you have any idea how much the software costs just to be able to do that programmng? I wont make up any numbers, but it aint two bits for damn sure.

17

It’s a shame my usual repair facility probably doesn’t have one of those machines. They’re just a mechanic, not a dealership.

I say it’s a shame because they don’t charge an hour’s labor for 15-20 minutes. They sometimes quote an hour’s labor, but if it sincerely takes 15-20 minutes, they charge for 15-20 minutes.

That said, I’m really not at all surprised by the OP’s situation. Chipped keys have been around for a while, and $150 is a fifth of what I’ve heard some people paying for replacements – of course, the insanely high prices I remember were for lost Lexus keys in the 90s. I don’t think the keys for my new Focus are chipped, but I do know that my mother does not have a physical metal key-shaped key for her Camry: she has a keyfob with a few buttons that looks like a sleeker version of the thing that unlocks my door from across a parking lot. It’s very fancy. It’s probably ridiculously expensive to replace. Luckily, Mom is not the sort to lose her keys.

18

That is such bullshit. I thought I’d lost my keys permanently (long story) last summer, and Ford was going to charge me $200 to make a new one. I found them, and keep meaning to get a spare one made when I have the extra $100 they say it’ll cost. Yeah. Like that’s ever going to happen.

Couldn’t they just make one without the chip so I can open my door if I lock my keys in the car? That’s what I’m most worried about. I wouldn’t even need it to start the car.

19

Actually, if hers is like mine, there’s a physical key hidden inside the fob (I’m guessing in case you decide to turn the smartkey system off). The size of it makes it easier to find my keys, which is a bit ironic since I don’t have to take it out of my purse to use the car.

20

A lot of the Fords we sold had one programmed key, with the “spare” key being a simple physical metal key without a chip in it. (Not particularly relevant in this case I suppose). But I do know it was quite common to get new keys without the chip for just the use you describe.

Actually some of these blank keys could then be retro- fitted with chips at a later date, or the chips simply switched between keys as one got worn over time.

I suspect however that this will simply not be an option for most keys in the future.