2007 Nissan 350z
Key Replacement - Save vs Dealer in San Diego

2007 Nissan 350z Remote Head Key Replacement - Fast, Affordable & Professional

In Otay Mesa, over near Nestor, a pharmacy tech had the kind of key story I hear more often than any other: bought the car used, got one key with it, always meant to get a spare, and then one afternoon the housing cracked along the seam and the blade snapped clean off when she pulled it from her pocket. The fob was in two pieces on the carport pavement.

The car wouldn't detect the broken key. She'd tried pressing the fob against the start area the way you do when you think the battery might be low, but the housing split had knocked something loose and it just wasn't communicating.

First thing I did was pull the transponder chip out of the cracked housing. Still intact. That changes the whole job. When the chip is readable, I don't have to run a full all-keys-lost procedure, which means I'm not wiping and re-registering from zero. I read the chip data, decoded her lock cylinder, and cut two fresh blades to match. Then I built two new fobs using the correct factory-spec replacement shells with a fresh CR1616 in each.

I showed her the chip from the broken housing before I set it aside. She'd never seen one before, tiny little thing, and once she understood that's what the car was actually talking to, the rest of the job made sense to her.

Both keys tested on the door, in the ignition, and through every button. Forty minutes, start to finish. She went from zero functional keys to two. The dealer had already quoted her a number she wasn't going to pay, and she didn't have to.

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