The Lemon Fool

I bought an eight year old Skoda with electronic key and pushbutton start. Quotes from Skoda garages for a spare key are around 400GBP. A local independent garage/locksmith who can make some types tried but failed and says he would need a dealer key, so he is no cheaper.

We only need the one key we have for normal use so the extra is to cover against the key failing or being lost or damaged. A mechanical only key is much cheaper and will let us into the car to recover possessions or get out of the weather. If the present key were to fail, please does anyone have a suggestion for making the car go without spending what seems an absurd sum for a key?

No good if you lose the key, but generally speaking, if the remote key fails, as in it doesn't allow you to enter the car, there is a back up way to start it.

Once you have used the physical key hopefully contained within the electronic one to get into the car, then touching the electronic key against the start/stop button should start it.

Timpson do a range of this sort of key. It is also worth looking on the owner forum for info.

FWIW the maserati came with a method of entering an immobiliser code by pressing the accelerator pedal. The code was about 15 digits. I didn't know whether to be impressed they thought to include it, or worried they thought they needed to.

A useful warning to us all to factor in the cost of a second key if buying a car that comes with only one.

redsturgeon wrote:A useful warning to us all to factor in the cost of a second key if buying a car that comes with only one.

Or better still, a warning not to buy a car with a ridiculous thing like an electronic key.

V8

88V8 wrote:

redsturgeon wrote:A useful warning to us all to factor in the cost of a second key if buying a car that comes with only one.

Or better still, a warning not to buy a car with a ridiculous thing like an electronic key.

V8

Probably quite tricky these days.

88V8 wrote:Or better still, a warning not to buy a car with a ridiculous thing like an electronic key.

Absolutely. Those old car door locks were far superior as you could open them with a bent spoon if you didn't have the key to hand.

Niksen wrote:

88V8 wrote:Or better still, a warning not to buy a car with a ridiculous thing like an electronic key.

Absolutely. Those old car door locks were far superior as you could open them with a bent spoon if you didn't have the key to hand.

Birmingham was once the centre of cutlery making. This is but one of the factors in its decline.

V8

88V8 wrote:

Niksen wrote:Absolutely. Those old car door locks were far superior as you could open them with a bent spoon if you didn't have the key to hand.

Birmingham was once the centre of cutlery making. This is but one of the factors in its decline.

Perhaps they could have arrested the decline if they had applied the non-rusting techniques they used on their cutlery to the manufacture of cars so they didn't dissolve before your eyes.

Niksen wrote:Perhaps they could have arrested the decline if they had applied the non-rusting techniques they used on their cutlery to the manufacture of cars so they didn't dissolve before your eyes.

Forty years ago, you'd have had a point, but the vast majority of modern cars will last 16 or 18 years without any structural rust. What will kill them prematurely will be the electronics.

Just the central "infotainment" dashboard display on a mid-range car can cost £3,000 to replace, and a single door/window lock on a Range Rover was recently quoted at £1,500 plus fitting. Similar for the dodgy gearbox electronics on the same car. When faced with repair costs like these, drivers are junking good cars with another fifty thousand more (or more) still left in them. And it's ludicrous. And indefensible.

BJ

bungeejumper wrote:and a single door/window lock on a Range Rover was recently quoted at £1,500 plus fitting.

A door lock on a Range Rover? Given that Range Rovers are virtually uninsurable because so many are stolen I wasn't sure they even had locks fitted

88V8 wrote:

Niksen wrote:Absolutely. Those old car door locks were far superior as you could open them with a bent spoon if you didn't have the key to hand.

Birmingham was once the centre of cutlery making. This is but one of the factors in its decline.

I thought that was Sheffield?

They certainly knew how to nick cars up there

DrFfybes wrote:

88V8 wrote:Birmingham was once the centre of cutlery making. This is but one of the factors in its decline.

I thought that was Sheffield?

They certainly knew how to nick cars up there

ENOUGH!

Cutlery WAS Sheffield. Flatware Birmingham.
Still what do you expect? The problem here is that cars are now more secure! You can't expect someone who espouses that as a problem to recognize that the key point of cutlery is that it CUT'S! The clue would be in the name.

Likewise the comments about steel. Yes they did make steel in Birmingham. But stainless (rustless) was Sheffield until the patents ran out.

In 1913, Harry Brearley of Sheffield, UK discovered ‘rustless’ steel.

https://www.azom.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=8307

Urbandreamer wrote:

DrFfybes wrote:I thought that was Sheffield?
They certainly knew how to nick cars up there

ENOUGH!
Cutlery WAS Sheffield. Flatware Birmingham.
Still what do you expect? The problem here is that cars are now more secure! You can't expect someone who espouses that as a problem to recognize that the key point of cutlery is that it CUT'S! The clue would be in the name.
Likewise the comments about steel. Yes they did make steel in Birmingham. But stainless (rustless) was Sheffield until the patents ran out.

In 1913, Harry Brearley of Sheffield, UK discovered ‘rustless’ steel.

That was a nice example of thread drift

V8

88V8 wrote:

redsturgeon wrote:A useful warning to us all to factor in the cost of a second key if buying a car that comes with only one.

Or better still, a warning not to buy a car with a ridiculous thing like an electronic key.

Any car that is shared between drivers should come with a few keys.

One of them can be keyless/electronic but the alternates should be mechanical.

So for my wife's Honda she has the e-key, I have a mechanical key and there is a spare in the hall cloakroom.

A car with just one key of any type is asking for trouble.

Lootman wrote:

88V8 wrote:Or better still, a warning not to buy a car with a ridiculous thing like an electronic key.

Any car that is shared between drivers should come with a few keys.

One of them can be keyless/electronic but the alternates should be mechanical.

So for my wife's Honda she has the e-key, I have a mechanical key and there is a spare in the hall cloakroom.

A car with just one key of any type is asking for trouble.

My car is 15 years old and I'm not the original owner. I HAVE had to replace keys as the buttons upon them failed. They were not cheap, but not astronomical either.
Sure I could change those bits, but afterwords the immobilizer wouldn't let the car start. Hence calling out a man with the tools.

I'd agree that relying upon only one key is a recipe for disaster, but the previous owner may not have had the same view. Either walk away, or negotiate a discount. If you have negotiated a discount, why complain if you need to spend it at an auto-locksmith?

Ps, back to the subject. Keys are advantageous if you want to drive or access the car. What MAD MAN used an electronic release upon the bonnet/hood on early Tesla's such that if the battery died you had to dismantle the car to either change the 12V battery, or to apply power?

Urbandreamer wrote: What MAD MAN used an electronic release upon the bonnet/hood on early Tesla's such that if the battery died you had to dismantle the car to either change the 12V battery, or to apply power?

I didn't know that until now.

that's made me HOOT!

redsturgeon wrote:A useful warning to us all to factor in the cost of a second key if buying a car that comes with only one.

Or more particularly think carefully about where the missing key might be, and what it might be used for in the future.

didds wrote:

Urbandreamer wrote: What MAD MAN used an electronic release upon the bonnet/hood on early Tesla's such that if the battery died you had to dismantle the car to either change the 12V battery, or to apply power?

I didn't know that until now.

that's made me HOOT!

James May did a better job of explaining the process, and how easy it would be to design a solution.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NsKwMryKqRE

didds wrote:

Urbandreamer wrote: What MAD MAN used an electronic release upon the bonnet/hood on early Tesla's such that if the battery died you had to dismantle the car to either change the 12V battery, or to apply power?

I didn't know that until now.

that's made me HOOT!

I'm pretty sure that in the bad old days, when locks were just locks, there used to be a way of getting a trickle charge into the battery via light bulbs, or summat like that**. It might take half a day, but it'd be less hassle than dismantling your Tesla.

Of course, if you could get inside the vehicle, you could charge it somewhat more rapidly through your cigar lighter accessory socket. These days, however, I daresay there'll be some inbuilt electronic gatekeeper that'll raise an objection?

Still, that's progress I suppose?

BJ

** I've told this story before, but the Mk1 Rover 200 series had a connector block hidden inside the rear wheel arch that would spring all the door locks open if you bent down and bridged the terminals with a bit of wire. An ingenious all-British invention that would have solved the getting-locked-out problem permanently - but for some reason it never caught on among other manufacturers. I can't imagine why.