2020 Fiat 500x
Key Replacement - Save vs Dealer in Ventura County

2020 Fiat 500x Smart Key Replacement - Fast, Affordable & Professional

I got a call from a guy over in the East End of Ojai. He drove a 2020 Fiat 500x and had a key made by another locksmith a couple weeks earlier after losing his original. The replacement worked fine at first. Then it got weird.

He'd start the car in the morning without any trouble, drive to work, park it. By the time he came back in the evening, the engine would crank and then kill itself. A couple times it just refused to start entirely. He was convinced something was wrong with the car. He'd already started googling fuel pumps.

I pulled up and ran a scan first. No fuel system faults, nothing in the codes pointing at a mechanical problem. What I did find was the key. The fob he'd been given had the right shell and the right blade, but the transponder chip inside was a generic substitute, not the specific variant the 500x body control module expects. These modules will sometimes accept a near-match on the first few start cycles, especially if the programming tool doesn't flag it. Then the module runs deeper verification over subsequent cycles and starts rejecting it. That's exactly what was happening to him.

I read the existing key's chip data, confirmed the mismatch, and programmed a correct replacement keyed to his vehicle. While I had it open I also swapped the CR2032, which was borderline anyway and probably contributing to the inconsistent remote behavior.

He asked me what the dealer would have charged. I told him a lot more than what I charged, and they would have had him leave the car there for a day or two. He had somewhere to be that afternoon.

The car has been solid since. Sometimes the job is just correcting someone else's shortcut.

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