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Comment by dylan604 | Hacker News Reader

What ever happened to take it to a dealer or authorized repair place to have it done? While I may be willing to take certain things apart that, the one thing in life I have resisted is any kind of monkeying with my car. There are certain things where I'm willing to accept that I took it apart and it no longer works because I bricked it, shorted something, or otherwise damaged it beyond my skill set to undo. My car is not one of them. However, I also do not want my car to be under the direct control of someone else that can decide I can no longer operate my car. If there's an update, I'll bring it in to have someone trained/responsible for that update.

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The perfect modern consumer/sucker...

My car needed another key. The stealership quoted me >$400 for it. I took it as a personal insult and did the research and ordered an OBD device and also discovered you can order replacement keys on aliexpress, and they'll even cut them for you with a good picture of your existing key. It was actually a fun project and very satisfying when I was able to successfully program and link the RFID chip to the ECU to start the engine.

May not be feasible with more locked-down modern cars which I wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole, but I was able to fix it for about $150, not including my time of course. But I have the OBD device to use next time now as well.

Excellent. Sounds about what I’ve paid.

eBay key fob (new) + local locksmith, easy and no insults!

Which I read this a month ago. Mazda dealer charged me $450 for mine. I figures the entire system is propietiary, so they can charge whatever they want.

>May not be feasible with more locked-down modern cars which I wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole

What's your plan for the future? I have an old car, but I know it won't last forever.

My plan for the future is a trailbike, a tent and a shotgun.

But with regard to a car, I don't know. I'll just do the best I can when the time comes. I'm hopeful there'll be options available or where I can cut antennas or whatever.

I needed a ford key, but only had a single key.

I bought a kit off of amazon "simple key" that included a programmer and a key with rfid chip. I think about $80.

You plugged the standalone dongle in the OBD2 port, did a procedure and it would take a few minutes and you would get an "original" key.

(The programmer said it was then locked to that VIN)

They key blank provided needed to get cut (did it at home depot).

I could then get additional rfid blanks for $7 and cut and program them.

Once you had two original keys, you could do the "DIY programming" method to make keys 3 and up.

The DIY method was something like "insert key 1, wait 3 seconds, remove, insert key 2 wait 3 seconds remove, insert new key, wait for something, remove" and you would get key 3, 4 ...

There were similar but separate ford procedures for programming the buttons on fobs to lock/unlock doors, etc

There's really no reason to be scared working on your car. I have no formal training and I have never paid a shop to fix my car in my 20 years of car ownership.

The mechanical parts of a car haven't changed much in the last 25 years, and are easy to understand just by watching a few YouTube videos.

The electronics have certainly gotten more complex, but if you can understand basic computer networking and low voltage electronics it's still quite simple.

If you are interested in learning how to fix your own car, there is a great guy who runs an auto repair business on YouTube and his tagline is: "Remember folks If I can do it, you can do it."

https://www.youtube.com/@SouthMainAuto/videos

Some people like messing with cars. They take the time to understand what's happening and learn the process and pitfalls. Hobbyists wiil never be as good as trained professionally but we can still get the job done. I went through the trouble to diagnose and replace a bad alternator on my civic after the battery started dying too fast. I did it cause it was fun.

The other reason i did it is because the dealership and other shops quoted me over 10 times the cost of parts, and I literally did not have the money to take them up should i have wanted to. Car maintenance is expensive, _especially_ at the dealership.

Some how, we've changed the direction of the conversation to something you lost vs a software update to the brains of the car. I'm guessing just to make the obvious point the dealership is not the cheapest place for repair.??? This isn't change the tire or get an oil change. This is something a consumer has deliberately done to prevent the manufacture from making an OTA software update. These are the kinds of changes that I want someone available right then and there to be responsible if the update borked the car.

Sure, but you have to realize that everyone isn't you. Many people are quite comfortable messing with the deep internals of their vehicle, to the point of changing code in the ECU. Others won't even change an air filter. Takes all kinds.

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