2004 Jaguar XK
Key Replacement - Save vs Dealer in San Diego

2004 Jaguar XK Transponder Key Replacement - Fast, Affordable & Professional

I got a call from a guy in Shadowridge, Vista, who had bought a 2004 Jaguar XK as a second car. He drove it home, parked it in the garage, and a few weeks later it would not start. Just cranked and died. He had one key, it was the original, and he figured the battery in the fob was weak. He swapped it. Same result.

He found me after calling the dealer, who told him the car would need to be towed in and that the process would take a few days. He was not interested in that.

When I got there, the car did exactly what he described. Crank, catch for half a second, stall. Classic immobilizer behavior on these, where the engine fires briefly on the mechanical side and then the security system cuts it. His original key was worn down enough that the transponder chip inside had shifted in the housing. The plastic around the chip cavity had cracked slightly, probably from years of being dropped, and the chip was sitting at an angle inside the key head. The reader coil around the ignition cylinder was not getting a clean signal.

I cut a new key blade to match the lock, transferred the programming to a new key head with the chip properly seated, and verified the immobilizer was reading it correctly before the first start attempt. Turned over clean. We ran it through a couple of full start cycles and it behaved each time.

He had been ready to have it towed and wait three days. Instead it was done in his driveway in Shadowridge in about an hour and a half, and he saved a good chunk compared to what the dealer quoted.

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