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johnridleyOne of the keys for the new car went missing for a while a couple of weeks ago. It was found, but it did impress upon me the need to have THREE keys for a vehicle. That way, if you lose one, you can still have two and make your own duplicate from those (two that already work are required to program the 3rd). If you get down to only one key, you have to pay the dealer something like $150 for a new key.
So I went up on to eBay and got a chipped blank key for $12 shipped. Then yesterday while waiting for the football game to start, I went over to Menards to get them to cut the key. I figured, cut the key on MY blank, sell me the blank, I'll throw it away, you get paid, everyone's happy.
However, they won't duplicate chipped keys. I don't know why, this makes no sense to me. Their official reason is that the machine might damage the original key. This, of course, is bullshit. That chip is tough as nails. They'd have to beat it with a sledgehammer to hurt it mechanically, and electrically it could put up with much more than the electric motor in that machine.
They also refused to go away while I used the machine myself. So I said "Fine, where are your chainsaw sharpening files, so I can cut the key myself?" $3 for a pair of files and I'm on my way.
It took about 10 minutes with a sharpie and the file this morning to cut the new key, 3 minutes to read in the owner's manual how to do the programming, and 30 seconds to program them. This is less time than I spent waiting for someone to show up at the key making machine.
So I went up on to eBay and got a chipped blank key for $12 shipped. Then yesterday while waiting for the football game to start, I went over to Menards to get them to cut the key. I figured, cut the key on MY blank, sell me the blank, I'll throw it away, you get paid, everyone's happy.
However, they won't duplicate chipped keys. I don't know why, this makes no sense to me. Their official reason is that the machine might damage the original key. This, of course, is bullshit. That chip is tough as nails. They'd have to beat it with a sledgehammer to hurt it mechanically, and electrically it could put up with much more than the electric motor in that machine.
They also refused to go away while I used the machine myself. So I said "Fine, where are your chainsaw sharpening files, so I can cut the key myself?" $3 for a pair of files and I'm on my way.
It took about 10 minutes with a sharpie and the file this morning to cut the new key, 3 minutes to read in the owner's manual how to do the programming, and 30 seconds to program them. This is less time than I spent waiting for someone to show up at the key making machine.
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Date: 2009-09-20 08:16 pm (UTC)We only have the manual that came with the car too, but it's several hundred pages, and it goes into a lot of detail. For instance, you can change the behaviors like autolock and auto-unlock by pressing the lock/unlock buttons in specific sequences while the key is in and on. That's good, since I absolutely hate auto-lock.