Hi,
I have misplaced the spare key for my Honda Civic. It has two buttons in the key for locking and unlocking the doors. The quote I get from Honda is $420 to cut and reprogram.
Does anyone know a place I can get a cheaper key done, similar to the original?
Thanks.
My advice would be to keep your existing half broken key for the metal part and get a remote programmed, would be cheaper that way.
It's not half broken, it's lost
Most locksmiths, and many of the smaller places that cut keys in shopping centres (Mr Minit etc) have the ability to clone keys. As long as you have at least one working key, they should be able to clone it for you, probably at a cost of about $100
Note that there are some keys that cannot be cloned, but the cutter will know what they can and cannot do.
With some cars, you can buy key blanks from eBay quite cheaply, then get them cut for a few bucks anywhere, then program them into the car yourself. The procedure is often something like opening and closing the door six times, turning the key off and on 9 times, swapping keys, that sort of silly thing. Search the net for details for your specific car.
Snataw - what did you end up doing?
I heard that the metal key part of modern car keys has a chip in it, so it is not as easy as going to the locksmith to get the key cut. My advice would be to keep your existing half broken key for the metal part and get a remote programmed, would be cheaper that way.
Just thought I share my experience when I bought my car, It came with 2 keys and one remote. I thought I better get another remote just in case I lost the one remote. I found one on ebay, and it came with instructions to program the new remote into the car alarm. To program it I needed my original key, and I needed to turn my ignition and open close my car door in a specific way. So my advice would be to get a spare remote while you still have access to a key, because if you lose your only key, it would be infinitely more expensive to reprogram the entire alarm system.