Guess What, We Found the Key!

I ran a call for locksmith service at one of my regular customer’s location, a body shop where I visit a couple of times a week matching locks to original keys on cars involved in accidents or theft recovery units. Now and then I get to restore keys for a vehicle that came to them without one, or as turns out once in a while, a key they lost themselves; that’s what happened to a wrecked 2005 Dodge Dakota pick up truck that was being worked on.

They said they drove it into the work bay to pull the front end and fix the bent fenders and bumper; this morning the keys walked off all on their own. When they called I was told up front that the key was one of those “chip keys”, the kind that has to be programmed. Not too many Dakota trucks have the transponder technology; but that is an option, more money for me.

I figured out the “mechanical key” without much effort and it turned the door locks and ignition switch easily; the vehicle wouldn’t start, but I’d already been told it needed the fancy key and programming. I looked up 2005 Dakota in my “book of secrets” to verify which transponder key to cut and the type of programming designated for that model truck; it used the “S” type key and was supported by CAN 1 programming. In plain English that means it used the second generation Dodge transponder key, and even better; I wouldn’t need to obtain the four digit PIN code because the CAN 1 system would extract that information from the truck’s on board computer and program the key all at the same time.

“Error – Unable to Communicate”, not exactly what I wanted to see on the programming screen after thinking this job would be a piece of cake. I tried again, same answer, “Error – Unable to Communicate”. I double checked my book of secrets; I had it right. I then called “tech support” and was told what I already knew; they were very nice and yet the information wasn’t helping resolve the issue.

There was a body shop worker pounding away at the driver side bumper trying to align it with the bolt holes. He noticed I’d been on the phone and figured I’d run up against some sort of problem.

“The wrecker driver removed some of the fuses”, he pointed to the fuse box where a couple of holes shouldn’t have been. Yup, that might explain why it wasn’t working. We rounded up some replacement fuses; still no spark. That’s when I started double checking other simple items off the check list. The transmission lever was all the way over in park; but the indicator showed it to be in “drive”. It turns out the vehicle hadn’t been driven into the service bay; it’d been pushed in after the wrecker driver disconnected the transmission lock out linkage under the truck. Once those individual items had been restored the truck started right up, without having to be programmed; on that item they had been mistaken.

I wrote up my bill and charged them for the programmable key since they’d told me it was a transponder key to begin with. The manager agreed; it was their mistake and there were no hard feelings for the extra charge. I was on my way out the door when another body shop employee yelled out, “Guess what, we found the key!” Normally that would have been bad news for me and good news for them; but I’d done my part of the bargain and completed it. Some days are just that way.