1998 Hyundai Elantra
Key Replacement - Save vs Dealer in San Diego

1998 Hyundai Elantra Remote Head Key Replacement - Fast, Affordable & Professional

I got a call from someone out in Carmel Mountain Ranch who had picked up a 1998 Hyundai Elantra as a second car. Good shape for its age, ran well, but he only had one working key and wanted a spare cut before he ended up stranded.

Simple enough job on paper. Remote head key, older platform, mechanical blade plus transponder chip inside the head. I showed up to his driveway with my kit.

The interesting part came when he handed me the original. The blade was worn down pretty significantly, more than he realized, because it had been working fine for him every day. Worn keys have a way of doing that, working just well enough in a familiar cylinder until they do not. A direct copy of a worn blade would have given him a spare that worked some days and fought him others, which defeats the purpose.

I decoded from the original rather than copying it worn, so the new blade was cut to the proper depth specifications. Then I handled the transponder side so the new key would actually start the car, not just turn in the cylinder.

He mentioned he had called the dealer first. They wanted him to wait several days for a parts order and were not exactly cheap about it. I was done in his driveway in under an hour. He kept both keys, the original and the new spare, and drove off with a little more peace of mind about that one-key situation he had been living with.

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