If you already have a car key but need a spare key, you’ll want Key Code Ireland to clone your transponder key.

If you lose your original car key, it will cost three times as much and twice as long to get a key generated from scratch. If you have no car keys, we would have to come to your car, unlock it, determine how to cut a working key, then hook up our diagnostic equipment to your car’s computer to program new transponder keys or key fobs. Save yourself the hassle and get your car key cloned so you’ll always have a spare key.

A transponder key is the car key with the electronic chip in the head of the key. A transponder key has to be programmed using expensive electrical equipment with a trained automotive locksmith technician. Don’t put yourself in a situation where you have no keys to your car. If you have 2 keys and lose 1, call us immediately to start the key cloning process. It only takes a few minutes, we can perform the service while you wait in our showroom. At Key Code Ireland we have the keys, equipment, and trained technicians!

FAQs

Does cloning work on all keys?

Programmable Keys – These are they types of keys that you will get if you take your vehicle to the dealership to get another key. They are programmed and have a unique digital signature. Your vehicle recognizes each key as a different key.

Clone Keys/ Non-programmable – These types of keys are made by copying the digital signature from one of your original keys to another key. Your vehicle cannot tell the difference between the original and clone key.

How do I know which type of key I have?

If your key has a manufacturer’s logo on it, then it is most likely a programmable (unique) key. If the key is an aftermarket key, and it was created without the use of a programming device that was connected to your vehicle (laptop or standalone programmer connected to OBD-II port), then it is a cloned key. In other words, if your transponder key was copied in a hardware store, it is a cloned key.

How does cloning work? 

Cloning car keys is very much ‘does what it says on the tin’– it’s taking the customer’s original key, and copying the data onto a new transponder so that it’s an identical match to the original. The vehicle can’t tell and so both keys are allowed to start the engine. Whilst it sounds fairly straight forward, different types of transponder have different methods of cloning them and will clone onto either the same type of transponder, or a new ‘cloning type’ will be needed to accept the data.

What are the pros around cloning?

Some of the benefits to cloning car keys are:

• Easy and quick – it’s a simple process of read, remove, write (for certain transponders) – it can actually take longer to cut the key blank!
• Cheap – from both a customer and locksmith perspective, you don’t need lock picks or a wide range of remotes, just a handful of transponders, a cloning device and the usual key blanks and key machine.
• No changes to the vehicle – whenever you plug in key programming equipment to the vehicle you can be reading, writing and clearing fault codes from all over the vehicle and customers can potentially blame you for all sorts of weird technical gremlins ‘that never happened before you came out!’
• Access – as above, to clone most transponders you don’t even need  the vehicle there so access etc to the shop doesn’t need to be readily available. You can be stuck in the middle of a field at a car boot and still clone car keys.

What are the methods used to clone?

The methods you go through to clone a key can depend on the type of transponder you have. With the exception of a technology called ID46 that is found on a large majority of the vehicles nowadays (with the exception of Fords, VAG group and Toyotas) the cloning process is as simple as reading the original, getting the ‘hidden’ data from the key (either by using internet connecting or just doing calculations with the key itself depending on machine and transponder type), and then inserting a cloning transponder to write the data onto.

In the case of ID46, the user must return to the vehicle halfway through the process and hold the cloning transponder (or another device that the cloning device manufacturer will provide) up against the original key while it’s turned in the ignition. This records the data and is used to help recover the hidden data from the key.