The Risks of Buying Car Keys Online
Have you lost all your car keys? Or maybe you’re just trying to make a spare truck key. Don’t buy them yourself. Please. This is a huge pet peeve of most locksmiths. I can’t speak for others, but at Crono Lock we make a living off the services we provide, not the product we sell. The problem with bringing your own car remote or chip key is, do you REALLY know what you’re buying?
Remotes
We see this all the time, someone calls us up wanting a remote programmed. We drive out to the client and they have a Honda Civic and a remote with a Honda logo on it. It’s just not that simple though. The best way to explain it is, vehicle remotes work on a frequency just like a radio station. You have to have the right frequency remote for this to work. You have to have the exact right remote or it’s not going to work. Even within the same year and model of a vehicle, there can be more than one remote.
Chip Keys
Just like your remote, in Canada at least, every vehicle manufactured after 2009 must have a chip key. Some vehicles have chips as early as the late 90’s. I hate to say it though, pre 2009 you might have to have a full ECU replacement as well. Brands like Honda require the master key to program in new keys, so if you’ve lost all your keys, it’s not always as simple as hooking up a programmer. Chip keys also work similarly in that they use a particular frequency of sorts that must match up to your vehicle.
Just Call a Locksmith
While I can understand wanting to save a few bucks on a remote or a key, you’re not programming a key in without a programmer for any vehicle 2009 onwards in Canada.This is not one of those times you can do it yourself for cheaper. What happens more often than not, is a locksmith will come out to your place, find out you’ve bought the wrong product, and either leave empty handed, or you end up buying their key or remote anyways. It just wastes both our time, and money. Don’t be that guy.
Looking for a spare key, or lost all your keys for your car? Crono Lock provides car key and truck key programming for Langley and the surrounding cities. Want to know more? Check out our vehicle key page for more information and get back on the road today.
