If you have a car made in the last twenty years and sold in North America or Europe, your keys probably have transponder chips in them. That is why everybody wants so much money to copy them! It isn’t cutting the key, it is programming the chip inside that requires very expensive equipment that is the reason for the high cost.
If you have a DIY mindset and some time, you can avoid paying lots of money though. All you have to do is crack open your key blank, take out the transponder, and put it in some other key blank that is identical. Then you have a locksmith copy that key. It is easy, and will save you $90 or so. Of course, it won’t give you two copies from one but if you messed up one of your keys or maybe even your only key, this could be the answer for you.
The other option open to you is to take the broken key, copy it onto a new key, and cut the transponder out and tape or glue it near your ignition. Then any key with the correct cuts will operate your car, unless the transponder falls off. The benefit to this trick is that it makes it a lot harder to lose your only transponder. If you lose your only key containing a transponder, it costs a lot more money to program your car to accept a key with a new transponder. Could be over $300, and the dealership will probably ask for more than that!
