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Comment by SoftTalker | Hacker News Reader

If you can even get them. On some older cars with this technology, replacement keys are simply not available any longer. I agree it would be really nice to be able to (legally) disable the security for cars that are pretty much fully depreciated.

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The low-tech solution is to remove the electronics from key and glue the near the ignition switch, but needs to be done before you loose the last working original key.

Yeah that works if the key uses simple RFID but not with other keys that must be physically inserted to activate (e.g. Mercedes-Benz keys from ~2000s era).

The positive thing about those keys is that you don’t have to worry about the mechanical part of the key wearing out.

That’s an issue for 20 year old mechanical key + immobilizer chipped keys. It’s not that you lost the key, it’s just finally in need of replacement. Of course; you could shuck the key from the old one and place it in the new one.

Protip everyone with any mechanical keys: take a picture of your keys!!!!!

And not just the key can wear out, so can the lock cylinder. I had a car where that was the problem. I removed the guts of the cylinder so that any key (or even a screwdriver) would turn it. Still needed the RFID nearby to actually start the car so it didn't seem like a big risk.

Often it also means shucking the chip from all remaining keys too so your fixed chip doesn’t interfere with the mobile chips.

I think you could also create a DoS attack in a parking lot by trashing the spectrum.

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