2013 Subaru BRZ
Key Replacement - Save vs Dealer in San Diego

2013 Subaru BRZ Smart Key Replacement - Fast, Affordable & Professional

I got a call from a guy in East Lemon Grove who parked at the home improvement store lot off Massachusetts Avenue. He'd had a key made for his 2013 BRZ about a week and a half earlier by another locksmith, and it had been acting strange ever since.

In the morning it worked. By evening the push-to-start would flash a key-not-detected warning and he'd have to sit there cycling through it. He was convinced the car had an electrical gremlin, maybe something in the antenna loop or the body control side. He'd already priced out a diagnostic at a shop.

I asked him a few questions before I even drove out. The pattern he described, working fine then fading, pointed me in a specific direction: a chip enrollment that didn't fully complete, or the wrong chip type that passed initial registration but couldn't hold up through the car's ongoing security verification cycles. That's a BRZ-specific problem because the immobilizer on this car is Toyota-derived, and if you program it with a tool that doesn't fully support that architecture, you can get a key that starts the car once or twice and then drops out.

I pulled up to him in the lot, popped the fob open right there on the hood. The CR1632 was low, which was making detection range worse, but that wasn't the core issue. I read the transponder chip in his existing key. Wrong type. Close, but not right for this application. A previous tool had written what it could and stopped.

I programmed a new fob with the correct chip and the right equipment for the Toyota-derived security system on this car. Replaced the CR1632. Walked every function: lock, unlock, the emergency blade in the door cylinder, push-to-start from outside normal range, push-to-start up close. Everything held.

He said the dealer had quoted him a number that made him find someone cheaper the first time. I get it. The answer is finding someone who actually knows this car's architecture, not just the cheapest option in the results.

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