2005 Toyota Solara
Key Replacement - Save vs Dealer in Ventura County

2005 Toyota Solara Transponder Key Replacement - Fast, Affordable & Professional

She was at a restaurant near Lynn Ranch in Thousand Oaks when her bag got lifted off the chair beside her. Keys, wallet, phone -- all of it gone at once. She borrowed someone's phone, called the police, then called her husband, then called me.

Her 2005 Toyota Solara was sitting in the lot with no working keys. Her husband had already called the dealer. The dealer quoted him three to five business days minimum, said the car had to be towed to their service bay, and the combined estimate to replace the lost key and rekey the locks came out to well over what anyone wanted to spend on a Thursday evening.

I got to the lot that night. The job was all-keys-lost, which is a different scope than adding a spare. When you still have a working key and just want a copy, the car already trusts one key and you're adding another to its memory. All-keys-lost means I clear the entire key memory first -- so the stolen key is permanently dead to that car -- and then register fresh keys from zero. I connected my programming equipment to the diagnostic port, cleared the old key data out of the immobilizer, and cut and programmed two new transponder keys from scratch.

She drove home that night. The stolen key still physically fits the door cylinder, and I told her that right away before she could worry about it. It fits. It doesn't start the car. The moment I wiped the key memory, that key became a piece of metal with a correct cut and a chip the car no longer recognizes.

The dealer quote was sitting at several hundred dollars plus tow fees and days of waiting. She got both keys the same evening for a fraction of that.

BSIS Licensed

LCO#6792

CA Bureau of Security & Investigative Services

NASTF Certified

National Automotive Service Task Force

Fully Insured

Liability & vehicle damage coverage

Google Guaranteed

Verified & backed by Google