Scionbug

This is the key & remote we have. It's in pretty good shape considering the age of the vehicle (2005), but it's the only one we have & it's only a matter of time before it gets locked in the car or ends up with someone who is away from the vehicle when it needs to be driven. But when I took it to Walmart the lady put the key in a keyhole on a machine & said "it's telling me it has a chip," even though I said I'm sure it didn't have one. She made it seem like the machine was picking up a nearby signal from a chip. Since she didn't take the key off the chain & the remote was hanging next to it, I wondered if the machine was picking up the remote. But the machine may just have been reading the size & shape of the key, which may be the same as some keys that have chips. Or the key may have been cut from a blank with a chip that doesn't actually go with the vehicle. Or the lady just had no idea what she was doing. The key blank the machine told her to use was massive, half an inch thick & twice the size of our key on the plastic end & $63. It just didn't make sense to me. Years ago I had a key made for another car that was a Toyota & the guy at Walmart said the same thing about it showing that it had a chip in the key. The car was a very low budget & cheap vehicle, so I knew it couldn't have something that high tech going on. It didn't even have power windows or locks & was basic as it gets. So I told him I was sure it didn't have a chip, so he just looked for a blank with the same size & basic shape of the key & then cut it from that. It was all metal & he warned that it may only work on the doors or possibly not at all. But I took the risk because the key was only a couple of dollars. Of course it worked perfectly fine in the ignition as well as the the doors. But this time the lady at Walmart didn't act like any of that was an option or didn't understand that it could be done that way. So now I don't know if I should go back to Walmart & try to explain they have something wrong & see if they have a blank that's all metal & cheaper or if I should find somewhere else to go. I've always got my keys made at Walmart & other than a locksmith & maybe a dealership, which I'm afraid will both be just as expensive, I'm not really sure where to go.

_____

Birsan

@04_Toaster Hi, I am expected in the future the driver window to act like a smart mirror. To have a multi-face recognition, or to display a virtual keyboard. Or, to accept a voice (password song?). Maybe also, in case that there is no battery power, must be use the old fashion key?

MileHightC

Get a key blank on eBay or Amazon or wherever and don't go to Walmart to have it cut. They were nice enough to completely trash an OEM key blank I brought them for my Cherokee and then wanted to re-cut it a second time after I told them it didn't work. Offered me some off-brand blank as a replacement and I had to take a pass.

Take it to Home Depot...I've never had an issue with them cutting a key for me and sometimes, depending upon who you get, may not even charge you if you bring in your own blank.