2014 Audi A6
Key Replacement - Save vs Dealer in San Diego

2014 Audi A6 Smart Key Replacement - Fast, Affordable & Professional

A woman who works at a dog grooming shop near Santee Lakes called me about her 2014 Audi A6. She had already paid another locksmith to make her a replacement smart key a few weeks before.

For the first several days it worked fine. Then it started getting inconsistent. The car would start in the morning without a problem. By afternoon, she would walk up to the door and nothing would happen. She would dig the key out of her bag, hold it closer to the door handle, try again. Sometimes it would finally respond. Sometimes it would not, and she would end up using the emergency blade to get in manually. She figured the car had an antenna issue.

When I got there I asked her to show me what the key was doing. The door handle was hit or miss. Push-to-start was hesitating. But the key itself looked fine on the outside.

I pulled the fob apart and checked the battery first. The CR2032 was sitting low, not dead, but enough to undercut the comfort access signal. That alone could explain the door handle behavior. But I also ran a read on the transponder chip, because on this generation of Audi the immobilizer does not just do a one-time check at programming. It keeps verifying across drive cycles. What I found was that the chip data was not a clean match for this vehicle. The previous locksmith had used something close enough to pass the initial enrollment but not exact enough to hold up over time.

I programmed a fresh key using the correct chip spec for her fob, seated a new CR2032 properly, and walked her through every function before I left. Doors, start, handle touch, every button. It has been solid since.

She asked what the dealer would have charged. I told her way more. She just nodded and said she wished she had called me first.

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