We just bought a used car from Hertz. It came with one chip key remote (lock/unlock - no starter). We asked about a second key and were told that they don’t supply a second key and that’s just part of keeping the cost down. The dealer replacement cost is $183 plus $100 to program it. A locksmith will do it for about $150.
My question is - why are these things so damn expensive? Is the chip tech that expensive or is it just that they have you over a barrel? I can get a tablet computer for less than the cost of a dealer key.
Also, I assume that Hertz must have second keys for their cars. Am I wrong about this? And, if they do have them, why keep them when they sell the car?
FWIW, this was a painless way to buy a car. No haggling or pressure. We got a 2018 Corolla with just over 13,000 miles on it for $13,400. We paid cash so no financing pressures, either. We also learned a bit about how and why the rental agencies sell some direct to the public and other cars go to auction.
I’m not sure which Rental car companies, but this has happened to my Wife a few times -
We’d get a rental car, and it came with two keys. BUT they where attached together on the same ring. Inseparable. Pisses me off since I would like to have a key and give one to my Wife.
My experience too. I don’t thin I’ve leased a car in the last 10 years that did not have both keys on the same wire. I can see the simplicity - I would assume it would be more logical to keep one key (Properly labelled!!) at the rental depot, to simplify when the key is lost; but may rental places let you drop off the vehicle in a different city or state, so that would be a different tracking nightmare.
I’m betting when they resell a vehicle, they take one of the keys and reprogram it to use with a vehicle where the pair of keys together got lost. Sav themselves $125 at your expense. Or… it goes into a bucket of keys to be used to fill in for lost keys when needed.
Had the same issue with my wife’s use 2007 4Runner. First vehicle I bought with the chip key and when I went to get spares made, I quickly found out about their little money grabbing scheme. Visited the 4Runner forum and it didn’t take long to learn about buying chip keys for a fraction of the price and how to program them yourself. Bought 3 and followed the steps and had some spares in no time. Tried to do the same for my wife’s cousin’s Honda but couldn’t find info about the process for that one. I guess it’s hit or miss when it comes to doing it yourself.
There are machines that have you insert the key and you get a copy in the mail a few days later. It worked for our 2001 Lexus, at a cost of around a hundred bucks.
I bought a used Mazda3 that only came with one key. Bought a blank, unprogrammed key online but I still had to take it to a locksmith to get programmed. You can program a spare key yourself, but you have to have TWO working keys to do it. Reason given for this is so someone with only one key, like a valet for example, can’t just make themselves a spare key while you’re in the restaurant or whatever. Which kind of strikes me as someone at the factory thinking too hard (how often does that happen, really?!) but whatever.
I brought this subject up here once before and was vehemently rebuked by a guy “in the industry” who cited special programs, chip manufacturing, custom security,blah blah blah" as the reason that replacement costs are so high.
He said the reason that your car hasn’t been stolen is due to this complexity.
I told him I didn’t believe him since I could quite easily pay $79, buy a fob off the rack at the hardware store and program it myself to set the same or better security on my garage door opener.
I can protect access to my house for $79 but doing the same for my car is approximately $300.
I may be a bit paranoid. Give someone my address and car key data? Nope.
I also have my PO box address on my license and registration. If someone gets mad about a car collision, they aren’t tracking ME down. Or if the wallet is stolen.
Part of it is that chip keys are a much lower volume part, and part of it is that they have you over a barrel, and part of it is the monetization model. There are a lot of tablet computers out there, and many of them are sold at costs that are subsidized by your expected continued spend in app stores and so on. Unless your chip key comes with an app store, then you’re not paying any more than the key itself.
Part of it is just that official parts for cars are expensive from the dealer. I bought a 3rd party compatible chip key for my car. Got two of them for $25. Programmed them myself. They work fine.
That is kind of weird. I have also dealt with rental car places that give you both keys attached together, and I understand why they do it. They don’t want to have another key floating around out there to catalog, and while it’s still possible for the renter to lose both keys, it’s a lot harder for them to accidentally lose one and then drive three states away from it.
But when they give you just one key, I assume that the other is in some central repository, ready to be duplicated, then shipped out overnight (because that’s cheaper than having a local locksmith make a new one). If so, they should definitely give you all the keys when you buy it used.
Maybe the central repository is just a database at the car manufacturer. When you buy a car, you get two keys, but when Hertz buys 100,000 cars, they just get one key each, and can order one made if that key gets lost. So they never have more than one key for each car.
That… makes a lot of sense, actually. I think I solved it.
Last time I bought a new key fob (for a Honda), the programming fee only applied if you didn’t have an original master key (i.e. not the ‘valet’ one). You might want confirm those prices are for copying a working original key.
Just replaced a key for my Honda Ridgeline. I had one key and wanted a spare. There was the programing cost, and the cost for the key and cutting the key.
Honda could not cut the key right. Their machine was out of calibration. Took the blank keys to a lock smith and he was able to cut the keys, but had problems programing them.
I purchased two spare keys, cost the same to program one key as it did two keys. I had to return to a Honda dealer to program the keys.
As I understand the process for more expensive (i.e. targeted theft) cars- for my BMW (and I gather, also for Mercedes) they basically have to reprogram the keys from the factory. To prevent a very expensive car from disappearing, it is not trivial to add a key. They basically erase everything the car knew about keys, and add all the keys back in together. Not sure if the dealer has that authority, or has to refer the procedure to the factory back in Germany.
(I think the remake of “Gone In 60 Seconds” had something like that - only the dealer could add Mercedes keys, and that was back in 2000.)
The last time I had a rental, it was for two weeks while they did warranty work on my truck. They gave me the two key fobs connected by the little inseparable aircraft cable. I didn’t realize until I got home that it didn’t come apart. I just cut the cable with a pair of dykes. I certainly wasn’t going to pay the replacement cost and inconvenience of losing two very expensive fobs at the same time… When I returned the car two weeks later, I just laid the two fobs and the cut cable on the counter, and he scooped them up without saying anything.
I’m not sure what current chip keys look like, but my (older) car ignition key looks just like an ordinary car key. I once took it to a key-cutting place to get a duplicate cut, and fortunately they were astute enough to inform me that not only would it not work, but apparently trying to use a non-chip duplicate would (perhaps after a certain number of attempts) disable the ignition altogether. I had to get the duplicate from a dealer, and yes, it was exorbitantly expensive.
I just got a replacement fob for a 2016 Kia Soul. You can buy the “blank” fobs online to have someone cut the key, but the reputable vendors will warn you that you’ll still need to go to a Kai dealer or maybe you’ll find a well-equipped mobile locksmith who has the external device that must be plugged into the car to enable programming.
There is no “turn the ignition on and off ten times, then press the driver door unlock button and the fob unlock button simultaneously until the horn beeps” sort of manual programming mode for this car, so I spent a total of $361 at the stealership for a new fob ($287), the key cutting and fob programming. ($74)
I might have been able to get the key fob for less, but didn’t want to chance someone saying “You didn’t buy it from us, so we won’t guarantee anything.”