If you still have a working car key this is not the place for you, go here to read about copying your car key. If you came here because you lost all copies of your car key then the options are:
- Get the key replaced by going to the dealership with your driver’s license and registration. They may refuse and demand that you have the vehicle towed to them. Check the costs of all options before deciding to do this
- Pay somebody to come out and make a key based on your vehicle’s VIN number and/or door cylinder (don’t trust people who say this will only cost $120, they’re planning on taking you for a ride)
- Pay somebody to impression a key to your vehicle from a door cylinder. This might not work because all of the wafers in a vehicle’s door cylinder aren’t necessarily in the ignition and vice versa, though the cuts for all of these wafers are on a key. Don’t expect to get an ignition key by removing your door cylinder and taking it to a locksmith. It works for some cars but not all.
It costs more to get a car key for recent model vehicles because they often have immobilizers that communicate with a computer chip in your car key. You might not think there’s a chip in your key but there might be if there is plastic on your key. It’ll probably cost you $250 minimum for somebody to come out during the day and make a key on site.
If your car is one of the rare ones that works without a transponder then it’ll probably cost between $150 and $200 during the day.
If you’re really unlucky you have a car that can’t have new keys programmed into it easily and will have to have the immobilizer taken out and mailed off to a service that can recover the original key information and program a key that is the same, or you have a vehicle that uses high encryption that hasn’t been cracked yet. Condolences!