2009 Cadillac DTS
Key Replacement - Save vs Dealer in Ventura County

2009 Cadillac DTS Transponder Key Replacement - Fast, Affordable & Professional

I was parked off Village at the Park in Camarillo when the call came in. A woman with a 2009 Cadillac DTS had one working key left, and it had snapped at the bow, right where the plastic head meets the blade. The blade was still in her pocket. The car would still start if she held the broken head against the ignition and worked the blade in carefully, but that wasn't going to last.

She found me the way most people find me: a forum thread where someone said the dealer quoted them a long wait and a price that made them start Googling other options.

The DTS takes a specific blade profile, and the transponder chip lives inside that molded plastic head. She didn't have a spare. I cut a new key to her lock using the door cylinder as the reference, which is a reliable way to get the cut right when there's no original blade to decode off. Then I enrolled the new transponder through the OBD port. No dealer bay. No repair order queue. No waiting three days for an appointment.

The whole job was done before she had to pick her kid up from school. She kept the broken pieces of the old key, I think mostly because she'd carried that key for years and wasn't ready to throw it out. That part I understand.

The dealer came up once, in passing. She mentioned what they'd quoted. I just told her she picked up a working key in a parking lot instead of a service bay waiting room. That was enough.

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