The cost of the physical key blank and the cutting should be whatever similar physical keys are going for these days. There is no justification for anything else.
The cost to the final customer of the physical electronic remote should not be more than $10 or say $20 if they really want to gouge the customer. Comparing with what electronics are going for these days there is no justification for anything more.
Programming the key can be and should be simple enough that the final customer can do it with no special tools if he has a minimum of ability. If the dealer or third party does it it should be a matter of less than 15 minutes.
With today’s technology this is totally possible.
Now, car manufacturers can choose what they want to do and offer and they should have the freedom to do it. In the end screwing your customers is a bad way to do business.
You’re being disingenious or obtuse. If you don’t like the cost of one software you’re free to use another. There’s even free open source software. Software isn’t a monopoly. Unlike car key production. There the price is artificially kept high and ridiculous and you have to pay it if you loose your car keys.
Pay it or walk. Where’s the free market on that? Buyer be ware of shady greedy assholes and con artists in the auto industry.
Several cites from Focuses and Mazdas, to garage door openers show it’s possible to make them at $25. The gripe isn’t with you. It’s with the obscene costs you have to take and pass on to the consumer.
If the costs of your supplies were reduced so you could sell them at a profit for $25 would you still have a gripe with this thread? You can’t because car companies charge obscene amounts for the tools to do so.
No I’m not, you are. I am pointing out that software !=! hardware. Just because you get it for free, that does not mean that software and hardware are the same thing. they aren’t, never have been, and never will be.
In case you missed it, I was responding to casdave’s rather inane comment
My computer is one thing, why do I have to load software after I bought the hardware?:rolleyes:
Once again Riiiiiiiiiiiiight.
(Bolding mine) I disagree here. When you buy a car you look (or “should look”) at the whole cost of ownership and take into account the cost of maintenance. If people do not do that they have no one else to blame but themselves. If Lexmark pretty much gives away the printers and then charges a lot for the ink cartridges whose fault is it if I buy a printer from them?
Since nobody is holding a gun to my head the extortion thing don’t fly. Sounds like you’ve never been robbed at gun or knifepoint. Even still,does it make one bit of difference? You pay or you don’t. It’s up to you. Crying about it isn’t going to lower the price or save your ass either.
You can be sure the factory reps that frequent my dealer stay the fuck away from me. I break their balls all the time. You know though, I haven’t ever said shit to them about chip keys because, well, every manufacturer uses them. Be sure I break thier balls about the shit that is brand specific all the time. I own two vehicles that use chip keys and I only have two chip keys for each of them. I got them at the time I purchased the vehicles. I do have 2 extra keys for each that will open the door in case of a lockout. And when I go on a trip I take both chip keys with me because I know if I lose one I will still have to pay to get one programmed. Just like everybody else.
Why is software a cost though? They had to write it once to program the initial bloody keys. It’s not like other people using it will cost them any more money.
No they set up a 3 day bundling scheme to exorte as much money as they can like common crooks. I hope the execs responsible for this end up in the poor house. It’s just a shim sham racket to extort as much money as possible.
Why does it need to be $150 when other manufactures can do it for $25? Do you service cars designed by incompetent engineers?
Well I agree to a point. Honestly though would you even think to check the price of a new key for TCO? Before this thread I wouldn’t have.
It’s fucking extortion. Pay outrageous fee or your car is bricked. Sure you could go without your car I guess, but that ain’t so easy in the modern world. Why should you have to pay $150 when it’s clearly possible for it to be done for $25?
Everyone missplaces their keys at some point. Just some car companies wanna be vultures and use that to extort lots of money from the victim.
Well, no, I wouldn’t. But if I hear that someone got screwed by company X I will try to remember it. And if I got screwed by someone you can bet your wife that I will remember and they will not get any more business from me and I will make a point of spreading the word. Yes, i hold grudges for a long time.
Yet you have not given any real analysis of your costs, or why things are as they are, you still have not justified why the car company charges you for a 3 day subscription when you only need it for an hour, you just reiterate that you can do lots of other things in that period.
Remember I used your costs, I did not make them up, how much further do we break down on individaul item to extort money for each part, perhaps we should charge for the plastic bag that the parts come in because of the special proerties that these plastic bags have.
Get a fucking clue dumbass, I am not fucking interested in how many other cars you can deal with for that fee, what fucking interest is that to me?
I have one car, I want a key, it takes less than an hour to program one, so riddle me this, why do I want to pay for you to have a 3 day subscription?
If all car dealers are as fucking clueless as you, with a customer ethic such as yours, then its no wonder the auto makers need bailout is it?
Go back and read post 93 if you want an explanation of why your views are inane.
Further if you think I am going to post my full operating expense report here just to show you how wrong you are, you are seriously on drugs.
As far as the three day subscription goes, the subscription has to run for some set period, 3 days is what they picked. What period of time would you suggest? Now before you answer, don’t forget that this same subscription is used for every diagnostic function in the car from reading various fault codes, to reprogramming control units to calibration, to parts look up to what ever. Now if you say it should be in one hour increments, just how would that play out if my buddy the independent had a stubborn check engine light that took him three days to fix (been known to happen), should he have to get his credit card out 24 times? :rolleyes:
Let me repeat that it is the same computer program that does all the diagnostic functions on all Volvos for the last 10 years. It does not matter if we are programming a key, looking up a repair procedure, or downloading new software to the climate control module it is the same computer program that does the work.
If you say that the program should be free, think back to when there were paper repair manuals, were they free? No they weren’t, and you could not rent them for 3 days either. This program does one hell of a lot more that any paper manual ever did.
At the dealership due to our high demand for this program I run multiple licenses and annual subscriptions. A small independent does not have the same need for the program as I do so they buy them as needed. That is the difference between doing 5 cars a day and doing 100+ cars a day
I don’t understand why you and The Tao’s Revenge are having such a problem with subscriptions having a cost. On my desk, I have a cell phone I paid several hundred dollars for. Yet every month I have to pay AT&T so I can use it. I have a TIVO that I purchased, yet every month I have to pay an subscripton charge to use it. Where is the fuck you TIVO thread? I must have missed it. Having to pay an access charge to use some hardware is hardly an unknown concept, yet you guys are acting like the car company is Lucifer himself for using it.
Let’s be realistic, a transponder key is a 5 cent hunk of metal with a probably 50 cent circuit inside. Everything else is just red tape and gouging. Yes, the security of the transponder keys is a great feature, but the car companies took that as an invitation to get their hooks into the dealers and owners by making things overly-complex and expensive.
Another possible option for those down to one transponder key, just make a copy of it to a non-transponder key. Should only cost a couple dollars. Then tape the working transponder key to the underside of your steering column. The car ignition is likely just looking for the presence of a properly coded transponder key. It doesn’t necessarily care if that’s the same key that’s in the ignition. The mere presence of the transponder chip should be enough to convince the car to start with the copy key. Of course there’s a security risk from doing this; if someone breaks into your car they have a working key right on the bottom of your steering column. I suppose you could hacksaw off the non-keyfob portion of the transponder key so the crook would at least have to hotwire the car to get it started.
Either way, I would go to great lengths to avoid paying $120 for a key, especially on an older car. This has been known to work on Toyotas and Fords, I don’t see why it wouldn’t work with any transponder key system that doesn’t rely on a physical connection to the transponder chip. If this works, make another copy so you can have at least two working keys outside the car.
Because greedy scum bags who have more common with criminals then decent business men are using subscriptions to drive to the price way up on something that only needs to cost $25.
Because unlike you I don’t like some auto exec’s ass and call it chocolate.
I’m still wondering what cars you service with these outrageous fees (not that I’m blaming you for the fees but the asshats who designed the system).
This does not work on our systems (Had a technician that had a physically broken key, he was trying to start the car to get it into the shop to program the new key.) No go, the system is too smart for that, the key has to be in the ignition, not just near it.
Rick, no-one in this thread is accusing you of gouging. Rather, they’re sympathetic that you too are being gouged by the car companies. There’s no good reason why you should have to be paying $100 for a key blank and hundreds of dollars in subscription fees for software.
Mostly, we don’t get why you’re being such an apologist for the car companies when it’s pretty clear that they’re gouging you.
There’s no reason why multiple models of cars can’t share the same remote or at least the same base board with a different plastic cover. I can routinely buy far more complex pieces of equipment with far smaller production runs for far less.
Being on the ass end of the process there’s is not a lot someone at the dealership level can do. The manufacturers buy their parts from suppliers that are generally controled by the UAW, the big three manufacturers for the most part. Foreign manufacturers I have no idea. Personally I would rather not cut keys at all. I take a liability to do so and the amount of crap you have to deal with is overwhelming. I make more money selling actual parts. All the pissing and moaning about it gets old.
Now this is something I can agree with, its not the dealer I hold responsible, its the way the companies have set up a system to break down one item into smaller parts and then charge lots and lots for each one.
This is a functional monopoly, because you usually cannot get the right item from anwhere else but at a franchised dealer.
It has been a long and subtle process to get to where we are, but slowly we have become accustomed to this concept of buying keys in ever smaller components, and not once during that process has it been of advantage to the consumer.
Dealers do not aim to piss off their customers, but they get the flak due to the manufacturers.
Rick. I respect you. I always have. I think you’ll note that I have commended you and GaryT on multiple occasions. But on this one, I think some executive in some windowed Detroit office is making consistently fucked up ideas that the dealerships, the customers, and ultimately you, have to deal with.
The insurance companies clamored for more secure cars, understandable. I hadn’t known that before, and it makes sense. And you enlightened me. But it seems to me that there were multiple approaches to addressing the problem, and Ford chose one the is needlessly complicated on so many layers, and labor intensive. Ford of course makes it’s money off dealers, just like any franchise. So some asshole in a window office decides he can force the dealers to use whatever fits his whim.
Now the three day subscription thing is really interesting. And I think it gives me some insight into how the car companies are fucking with the dealers. I work in IT. I work in a supercomputing institute with some of the brightest minds of the business. And I can tell you this unequivocally. Making one massive computer program that diagnoses everything is just about the stupidest approach to this . I can only imagine that Ford laid off the guy that originally designed and programmed the on board computer, so no one has a clue how to write a separate program. Why else would they make such a fucked up program? So everything has to go into this massive hulking program that does everything. Because of that you’ve got a program that is testing your transmission and window motor when all you have is a short in a break light. It’s needlessly complicated probably because that same asshole two decades ago chose to program the on board computers with a proprietary system that has become so bloated over the years because the whole friggen thing is built on a house of cards and can’t be changed.
Stupid.
But why fix it? The dealerships aren’t complaining, and it is there where the money is really made. Not the customer. So fuck em. So asshole in the window office who was tasked to increase his “key” market segment, had a stroke of luck when the insurance companies whined. So he chose the most fucked up resolution to the problem that he could that would also increase his market segment’s bottom line.
I think that the car companies have become so bloated and unresponsive because of the channel design of modern manufacturing in the US. As long as asshole in the window office consistently shows profit in his channel of responsibility, he is safe. I think the recent spotlight on the heads of these companies proves that there isn’t a person on the top saying, hey, isn’t there another approach to this? Those fuckers are too busy looking at there stocks than to really appreciate what the fuck is really going on in their company. Something this trivial likely never even showed up on the radar. But it is endemic as to what is wrong with US auto manufacturing.
I don’t blame the dealerships on this at all. I was pissed when they told me, and I made the OP when I was, but in hindsight and with the additional information that I’ve seen, My anger belongs in Detroit. And frankly dude, I think they are screwing you with a spikey dildo.
Well if it was just the US I might agree. But it isn’t. Rick works for Volvo. Even working for Chrysler I deal with both Daimler vehicles and Mitsubishi and they do they same shit. If you need a key for a Daimler the dealer can’t even cut it. It is ordered cut and programmed. And they are way more expensive than any Chrysler key. GM is the one that started the shit in either the late eighties or early nineties. Back then it was one wire at the base of the steering column and they would ripped off too.
Please forgive my hostility. When you hear about it 5 to 10 times a day, usually after somebody loses thier key and had only one to start with, your compassion kind of goes in the pooper.