Faulty Spare Key - Should the garage pay?

Yitzhak Rabin

Hi All, I'm in one of those horrible situations having lost my car keys. Luckily(or so I thought) I had a spare set at home.

However, the spare key won't work, and it appears it either was never coded, or the coding has failed.

I bought the car three months ago and its covered by a warranty on all repairs, parts and labour (apart from crashes and the like) for 6 months.

So now my car is stuck in Dublin, and I am stuck at work in Cavan. I will need to take a day off work and head to Dublin and get the car towed to a VW dealer to have the key coded.

My question is, should the garage pay for this, seeing as they sold me a car with a faulty spare key?

Also, anyone know if 123.ie comprehensive cover, covers this kind of thing without losing no claims?

Appreciate all replies, and can give anymore information people need.

si_guru

yekahs wrote: »

Hi All, I'm in one of those horrible situations having lost my car keys. Luckily(or so I thought) I had a spare set at home.

However, the spare key won't work, and it appears it either was never coded, or the coding has failed.

I bought the car three months ago and its covered by a warranty on all repairs, parts and labour (apart from crashes and the like) for 6 months.

So now my car is stuck in Dublin, and I am stuck at work in Cavan. I will need to take a day off work and head to Dublin and get the car towed to a VW dealer to have the key coded.

My question is, should the garage pay for this, seeing as they sold me a car with a faulty spare key?

Also, anyone know if 123.ie comprehensive cover, covers this kind of thing without losing no claims?

Appreciate all replies, and can give anymore information people need.

Any decent dealer would fix this for free.

mickdw

What car is it? Dont be so quick to write off the faulty key. If its a case of it simply not working the remote locking, it could be just gone out of sinq as a safety precaution.

Yitzhak Rabin

mickdw wrote: »

What car is it? Dont be so quick to write off the faulty key. If its a case of it simply not working the remote locking, it could be just gone out of sinq as a safety precaution.

Its a VW passat, new type. No, its not starting the engine. I left the car unlocked, thankfully in an army barracks, so its safe.

I know next to nothing about cars, but basically, when I put the key into the car to start it, I got no reaction.

mickdw

Well with the current model passats, if the open/close buttons get pressed a number of times outside the range of the car, the key will no longer work for remote opening. I dont know if it also stops it working in the ignition or not.
What I would do before spending money on dealer is
Check to see if light is flashing on key when pressed. If not, get a new battery.
If it is alive, slip the hidden key out of top of your key fob. lock drivers door with the hidden key, then press unlock on the key fob, open door again with the hiden key & then try the fob in the ignition slot again. Worth a try. This is the procedure vw give for reactivating the central locking function if it has been pressed out of range too many times. Not sure if it will help with it not working with the ignition but as I said, worth a try.
The keyhole in the drivers door in under the little cover at the back of the handle.

At least if the hidden key fits your locks, you will know that the garage didnt just give you any old passat key they could find as a dud spare.

Just to double check, you are pressing the clutch when starting.... Happened a friend of mine. In a pressure situation, they forgot how to start the car (passat too).

Yitzhak Rabin

mickdw wrote: »

Well with the current model passats, if the open/close buttons get pressed a number of times outside the range of the car, the key will no longer work for remote opening. I dont know if it also stops it working in the ignition or not.
What I would do before spending money on dealer is
Check to see if light is flashing on key when pressed. If not, get a new battery.
If it is alive, slip the hidden key out of top of your key fob. lock drivers door with the hidden key, then press unlock on the key fob, open door again with the hiden key & then try the fob in the ignition slot again. Worth a try. This is the procedure vw give for reactivating the central locking function if it has been pressed out of range too many times. Not sure if it will help with it not working with the ignition but as I said, worth a try.
The keyhole in the drivers door in under the little cover at the back of the handle.

At least if the hidden key fits your locks, you will know that the garage didnt just give you any old passat key they could find as a dud spare.

Just to double check, you are pressing the clutch when starting.... Happened a friend of mine. In a pressure situation, they forgot how to start the car (passat too).

Cheers Mick, really appreciate it, I'll try all that when I get to the car tomorrow. I hope thats the case, it would save me alot of grief!