Youch! The price of auto keys!

About a month ago my sister got sick while taking a final at school and in the process of bouncing back and forth between classrooms and bathrooms lost her Volvo Key+Remote. I realized this would probably be expensive to replace. It's going to cost about $40 to replace the remote (Dealer wanted $113.85-HA!) and another $40 to have a key cut.

What surprised me though is when I started talking to other people. My brother in law and I have a fundamental disagreement in I think European cars are great and not that much more expensive to keep than American cars. When I told him that he was right, this key would be $40 instead of the $2 it would have cost to replace an American key he disagreed with me and said that was cheap, his mother's Bonneville has GM's Passlock II (With the chip in the key part of the key) and those cost about $100 to make. I chuckled and told him I thought those were only about $25 now days and that my moms car has the same system but it's been broken so long the light that says it's broken has burnt out.

Well so there, I thought we had 1 isolated incident. Nope. Talking to somebody else her husband lost the transponder key for his Ford Focus. $40 to replace.

What's up with these inflated key costs? We have 3 separate technologies represented here (Chipped, Radio Transponder, and High Security Mechanical) yet all 3 cost about the same to replace. Interesting...

I will say I feel a little more comfortable security wise about a car with a 4 track key that can only be cut on a special machine than, say, the $0.99 key but still!

Good reason to get the dealer to throw in a couple extras before you sign on the dotted line.

Yeah, I think they discovered a new profit margin and are trying to milk it for all its worth until enough of the public learns about it to make it a liability.

yep, just another ploy to squeeze a few more bucks out of you.

Also, I wouldn't be surprised to see the auto makers sue anyone who *does* manage to figure out how to duplicate these keys, most likely using some bogus DMCA provision.

Knew someone that had the Ford CD for service managers. It told how to program the key. No special equipment was needed. Just needed the key with the chip in it. The keys were available on Ebay, cheap. So was the CD. After cutting the key, it was just a matter of putting the key in the ignition and turning it on and off for a given number of times for certain lengths of time. I bet a Ford Dealer wouldn't tell you how.
oldgrandpajack

Forgot to mention: Glad I'm not the one that lost the keys /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grinser2.gif


Saaby<---Been carrying keys every day for the past 9 years. Never lost them once. That's more than half my life /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

I can't figure out why we're still using keys, really. Am I missing something? I've had the pleasure of using several cars that have keypad entry, and one that has keypad ignition. They certainly worked well, and I can't imagine that they're any harder to defeat than a keyed system (where the real security is still in the electronics, right?) Oh, how nice it was not to have to carry ANY keys (I don't use keys for my house either!) Now I'm stuck with two cars that do require keys to operate - it is tough to go backwards.

Don't try and fool me now, you had 1 car that used keypad entry. Same one with keypad ignition. Unless you've owned a lot of Ford products I never knew about (That T5 wagon doesn't count and now that I've become fully Volvo-ised I want a T5 wagon...)

Yet another reason to buy American.

Daughter in law looses keyless entry transmitter to Blazer.

I go to favorite Chevrolet dealer.

Talk to favorite salesman.

Salesman opens drawer to desk. Drawer full of Keyless entry transmitters.( Regular price $40.00 each)

Salesman gives me two for Blazer, two for Silverado pickup, two for sons Tahoe. Directs me to have service department program the transmitters for each vehicle. No charge.

To top it off, parts department looks up VIN of Blazer gets key code and cuts two new keys for Blazer...No charge.

Is this a great country or what?

Hey Saaby, you should see how much it is for a key for the new 9-3!!

I got you beat.

My dealer informed me that if I lost a key it'd be OVER $300 to replace the fancy key+fob for my new V70-R. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/crazy.gif

Now I've got one more thing to discuss -- How many fancy keys come with this fancy car? At least he put on roof rails and real Thule crossbars & knuckles for free. (and not those useless crossbars that come on the Cross-Country version that curve over the roof)

[edit] Just as with other cars it comes with 2 keys w/integrated fobs (they're flip-out keys) and 1 valet key.

Ah, they joys of a good old Russian car with fully mechanical locks...central locking? Remote controls? Electronic immobilisers? What're they all about?

Only kidding, do have a remote now for the alarm/immobiliser I fitted, but the key's still mechanical. Costs about $5 to get a key cut, probably cheaper if I were to shop around. Rather than the $150 it'd be for my father to get a new key for his Ford Fusion! In this case, I think it's another one of ATP (Antique Technology Prevails), one nice thing about living in a quiet area too.

Woah talk about coincidence!

The keys were lost probably a month ago. Yesterday I finally started picking up the pieces and looking for new keys. Today the community college called my sister--they found her keys /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grinser2.gif

I told her to give me the $75. She didn't think that was too funny.

interesting thread, I just had to have the locks on my 93 escort replaced for the 6th time.

the locks are STILL under warrenty, but the keys are $9.00 each to have them cut, ("off the shelf" keys will open the doors, but not the ignition, which can be started with a screw driver, go figure)

now if I can just stop trying to use the Subaru Fob to open my front door of my house.

Jeep has a "Sentry Key" system. A chip in the key has a code, and the computer in the car has a code. When a new key is programed, the computer stores the key's code, and the key stores the computer's code. I thought that was pretty good, but I heard that some instalers of remote starters can 'bypass" the sentery key system. I don't know if that's true or not, but that's what I heard.

Speaking from the perspective of a computer programmer, it's the initialization phase that bombs nearly all types of security systems.

I don't know squat about car security systems, but let me extrapolate on what seems to be the case in general. Take the Sentry Key system as an example. If the key stores the computer's code, and the computer stores the key, then there needs to be a way to program each in the first place. Presuming that's the case, then a thief can ignore whether he has the right key and aim his effort instead at resetting the keycode system in the car. If that can be reinitialized relatively easily then bingo, the fancy car key is worthless. But the auto companies don't tell you that part, they just tell you that it's a one-in-gazillion chance of someone else being able to break the code on the system. They don't mention the possibility of bypass, so I'm very skeptical of these fancy expensive key systems.

It's the same with computer security. If you can crack the initializing handshake session, then you don't have to go through the nearly impossible task of trying to figure out the multi-bit encryption which is all you'll get just from the data stream transmitted post-handshake.

I'm still trying to decide if I want to hook my mp3 computer up as a security system. Put my pgp key on one of the little usb flash drives and put a USB jack on my dash /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Most the 'Fancy key systems' are pretty secure in that aspect, Peter.

For starters to try and trick the computer you have to get into the car and bust the ignition, then and only then can you start tampering.

About half the systems require you to have at least 1 working key to program another in. Ford's VATS 2 system requires you to have 2 working keys to program in a third. What if you loose all your keys (Or in the case of VATS 2 all but 1 key)? Trip to the dealer to reprogram keys. This is where propriterarity is a beautiful thing. I suppose a very advanced theif could figure out how to clone the dealer computer, but they would then have to bust into a car, bust the steering (But not the transponder system), plug in their home-made computer cloner and try and fiddle with programming keys. All this is going to deter theft, and that's exactly what the systems are designed to do--deter theft.

My favorite system is GM's PassLock. It's a fairly low tech solution that works well. I don't know all the specifics, but basically it's a 2 part system: Mechanical lock and the key cylinder itself. It uses mechanical pins and tumblers but it also has some magnetic pins. You may be able to force the key cylinder, defeating the mechanical pins, but the electronic ones will not be aligned properly and thus will send a bad signal to the computer--so the car won't start. I suppose you could get real smart and replace the key cylinder but the key cylinder isn't just sending a "Good/Bad" signal to the PassLock computer, it's sending a signal based on a resistor placed in the key cylinder--so if you replaced the cylinder you'd have a 1/15 chance of it working assuming that in your cursory modifications to the car you did everything right. Wrong value? Theft computer invokes starter disable and tells ECM to shut down the injectors for 4 minutes. Sure you could short the starter, but it's hard to start/run a car when the injectors aern't injecting.

Or there's the Saab approach: Make ugly cars nobody would want to steal anyway. Er...I mean, put key between seats where the whole system is harder to break into. Gear shift selector is designed to shear before the lock does, thus rendering the car stuck in 'park'

[ QUOTE ]
Saaby said:
Or there's the Saab approach: Make ugly cars nobody would want to steal anyway. Er...

[/ QUOTE ]

Saaby, in my personal past experience, the "Saab approach" of theft deterrence isn't that the car is too ugly to steal. It's that the prospective thief knows the car will either:

1) not start (its already broken down),
2) break down on its getaway,
3) the smoke trail from burning oil will give him away, or
4) failing all those, even if it does start and drive, he knows the car will almost immediately require a $500 repair soon.

So he moves on to steal a Toyota. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif