2015 Hyundai Tucson
Key Replacement - Save vs Dealer in San Diego

2015 Hyundai Tucson Remote Head Key Replacement - Fast, Affordable & Professional

I got a call from a guy parked near the shops in Del Mar Village. His 2015 Tucson was starting fine in the morning but by early evening it would crank, catch for a second, and then die. He had already been told by a shop that it was probably a fuel pump. He was ready to spend real money on that diagnosis.

When I got there and talked through the pattern with him, the intermittent nature of it stood out. Fuel pumps tend to fail more consistently, especially once warm. This was random. Sometimes it started perfectly. Sometimes it cranked and stalled before he could get it into drive.

He mentioned a locksmith had cut him a replacement key a few weeks before this started. That was the thread I pulled.

I connected my tool and checked the immobilizer. The replacement key had been enrolled, but the transponder chip inside it was not the correct type for this vehicle. It was close enough that the immobilizer accepted it on the first check in a fresh session, but during the deeper verification that runs over subsequent start cycles, it kept flagging. The car was not malfunctioning. It was doing exactly what it was designed to do when it suspected a key that did not fully match.

I programmed a new remote head key with the correct transponder type confirmed against his vehicle, cut the blade on site, and tested it through multiple start cycles before I left. The stalling stopped immediately.

He had been one appointment away from an unnecessary fuel system job. The fix was a correctly programmed key, done in the driveway, for a fraction of what the dealer quoted him when he called them in a panic the night before.

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