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Fob duplication
- Thread starter rivarama
- Start date
Wildoliver
New Member
- Messages
- 26
What I'm about to write may be of use or not, but I know a bit about keys and immobilisers.
What we know as the key on most cars contains 3 parts. A key blade (obviously excepting keyless entry cars) which mechanically unlocks the doors and ignition lock which is just a protected electrical switch.
A remote central locking board, which in most cars is either an RF (radio) or infra red system which again in most cars just unlocks the car, if fitted it will turn an alarm on and off but usually has nothing to do with the immobiliser. Often new remotes can be coded in by owners to save dealer trips, and keys cut by any locksmith with the right equipment.
But the issue for most of us is the immobiliser. Most cars have a small chip in the key. It's sometimes embedded, other times removable, if you look inside your key if it opens you might see a small glass pill or a black carbon chip/pill. That's the bit that knocks the immobiliser off, there is a radio aerial around the ignition barrel which looks for the signal the chip gives out when it's excited by radio, if the signal is correct then the code box will tell the ecu it can start.
Ways around the issue of a lost key.
Firstly any lost key is capable of starting your car unless coded out, if you dropped it in to a volcano while hiking in Iceland, it's probably safe, but if you bought it from big Trev in Birmingham it may be worth thinking about.
Most cars are hard to code new keys in to without visiting a dealer. Some aftermarket diagnostic software will allow key coding but generally this still needs a trip to dealer to get a code which they rarely want to give up. This is common sense. Otherwise you end up with messes like the BMW situation where people could break in to and code a new key to your car and drive it away.
One way round this is to remove the chip from the key and tape it too the steering column. This is a bodge and basically renders the car "without immobiliser" anyone breaking in who can defeat the actual ignition lock can drive the car away.
Depending on chip type you can get it cloned. This is what timpsons will do. I bought a key cloner and cutter a while ago to deal with this issue on some of the cars I work on. This approach works well on any car with a fixed code immobiliser. In other words the code stored in the key is the same every time the key is inserted. All you do is clone it and then the car assumes whichever key you use is the original one that was cloned. You can now have 2 keys, both cut and working the same. But the lost keys will still start the car.
What can't be cloned are rolling code keys, these are keys that every time they are inserted the code box looks for one of the last codes it wrote to the keys in its memory and if it finds one it allows the ecu to start the engine. It then rewrites the key with another code and memories that one. You could clone a key with this kind of system but whichever key you use after cloning will become the key for the car. The other one will not work as it will now have the wrong code for the car.
Hopefully that helps a little bit.
What we know as the key on most cars contains 3 parts. A key blade (obviously excepting keyless entry cars) which mechanically unlocks the doors and ignition lock which is just a protected electrical switch.
A remote central locking board, which in most cars is either an RF (radio) or infra red system which again in most cars just unlocks the car, if fitted it will turn an alarm on and off but usually has nothing to do with the immobiliser. Often new remotes can be coded in by owners to save dealer trips, and keys cut by any locksmith with the right equipment.
But the issue for most of us is the immobiliser. Most cars have a small chip in the key. It's sometimes embedded, other times removable, if you look inside your key if it opens you might see a small glass pill or a black carbon chip/pill. That's the bit that knocks the immobiliser off, there is a radio aerial around the ignition barrel which looks for the signal the chip gives out when it's excited by radio, if the signal is correct then the code box will tell the ecu it can start.
Ways around the issue of a lost key.
Firstly any lost key is capable of starting your car unless coded out, if you dropped it in to a volcano while hiking in Iceland, it's probably safe, but if you bought it from big Trev in Birmingham it may be worth thinking about.
Most cars are hard to code new keys in to without visiting a dealer. Some aftermarket diagnostic software will allow key coding but generally this still needs a trip to dealer to get a code which they rarely want to give up. This is common sense. Otherwise you end up with messes like the BMW situation where people could break in to and code a new key to your car and drive it away.
One way round this is to remove the chip from the key and tape it too the steering column. This is a bodge and basically renders the car "without immobiliser" anyone breaking in who can defeat the actual ignition lock can drive the car away.
Depending on chip type you can get it cloned. This is what timpsons will do. I bought a key cloner and cutter a while ago to deal with this issue on some of the cars I work on. This approach works well on any car with a fixed code immobiliser. In other words the code stored in the key is the same every time the key is inserted. All you do is clone it and then the car assumes whichever key you use is the original one that was cloned. You can now have 2 keys, both cut and working the same. But the lost keys will still start the car.
What can't be cloned are rolling code keys, these are keys that every time they are inserted the code box looks for one of the last codes it wrote to the keys in its memory and if it finds one it allows the ecu to start the engine. It then rewrites the key with another code and memories that one. You could clone a key with this kind of system but whichever key you use after cloning will become the key for the car. The other one will not work as it will now have the wrong code for the car.
Hopefully that helps a little bit.