Replacing broken VW key

valve90210 · 11 Sep 2015 at 11:36

Hi All

My Dad has somehow managed to break one of his keys to his car and has been quoted £199 for a replacement from the main dealer. That to me sounded rather steep so I looked on ebay and found you could pick up replacement casings etc for about £3.

From what I gather, you simply swap out the internals and the blade and bobs your uncle, all sorted. Sadly for my Dad its the actual blade which is broken...

He has a spare key, so I'm wondering if you can get them cut at a decent keycutters? and then just swap over the internals and he should have a working key again? I am right in my thinking or have I overlooked anything?

slick rick · 11 Sep 2015 at 11:41

Yes you should be able to swap the internals from the broken key into a replacement shell with blank blade and get it cut.

I did something similar and Timpsons cut the blade for me, but a couple of years later I asked for the same service and they refused saying they wont cut keys not provided by them even though they did previously, so you might have to ask a few places.

swain90 · 11 Sep 2015 at 11:47

If they ask questions take the log book and proof of ID, wouldn't have thought it'd be a problem.

Diagro · 11 Sep 2015 at 12:06

slick rick said:
Yes you should be able to swap the internals from the broken key into a replacement shell with blank blade and get it cut.

I did something similar and Timpsons cut the blade for me, but a couple of years later I asked for the same service and they refused saying they wont cut keys not provided by them even though they did previously, so you might have to ask a few places.

Yea timpsons are annoying.
I bought a virgin key off ebay, had it programmed and then asked them to cut the Key.

They refused and said i would need to buy a new key inc casing from them for £30.

slick rick · 11 Sep 2015 at 12:39

swain90 said:
If they ask questions take the log book and proof of ID, wouldn't have thought it'd be a problem.

That wasn't the issue, it was as Diagro say's, they want to supply the blank at a large mark up and refuse to cut a customer supplied one for whatever reason. I am not sure if this policy will differ from shop to shop though and there is no harm in asking.

valve90210 · 11 Sep 2015 at 13:20

Hmmm, thanks for the heads up on that. Might be worth asking a smaller independent key cutter.

kefkef · 11 Sep 2015 at 13:25

Think it's across all Timpson's, I asked 3 local ones to do me 5 house keys for my front door, they wouldn't cut supplied blanks and would only do me them on their blanks, £100 for 5 keys....... I got them on the internet for £18 in total.

Local independent is a good call by valve90210.

lemonade · 11 Sep 2015 at 14:41

If you mean the fob is broken and not the actual metal key, then I would imagine you can just swap it onto another fob casing.

snapdragon69 · 11 Sep 2015 at 15:19

If you buy these Chinese flip blades off ebay, they are made of the wrong metal for keys and the key places refuse to cut it or start to and then say sorry it's too hard to cut.

valve90210 · 11 Sep 2015 at 15:25

lemonade said:
If you mean the fob is broken and not the actual metal key, then I would imagine you can just swap it onto another fob casing.

Sadly no, it's the actual metal key that's broken, god knows how it happened!

snapdragon69 said:
If you buy these Chinese flip blades off ebay, they are made of the wrong metal for keys and the key places refuse to cut it or start to and then say sorry it's too hard to cut.

Hmm, that's an interesting point, I assume that would include the cheap ones I've seen on ebay at a guess?

Might be worth paying the £30 or so from Timpsons, still vastly cheaper than the VW dealer wanted!!

Magic_x_uk · 11 Sep 2015 at 16:26

yes timpsons said same to me. wont cut the ones in a fob you buy off of ebay as they said they could possibly be weak metal, then break of within the ignition barrel. Seems a fair point. None of us fancy a key snapped of inside a ignition barrel.

pepsilol · 11 Sep 2015 at 17:10

snapdragon69 said:
If you buy these Chinese flip blades off ebay, they are made of the wrong metal for keys and the key places refuse to cut it or start to and then say sorry it's too hard to cut.

Someone has Bs-d you.

valve90210 · 14 Sep 2015 at 16:33

Think I'm going to suggest he gets a cheapo key from ebay and finds a key cutter who will cut it, it all else fails then Timpsons for £30, even if it goes that way it's still a huge saving over the main dealer!

snapdragon69 · 14 Sep 2015 at 21:12

pepsilol said:
Someone has Bs-d you.

I thought that the first time, as he looked at it and said it looks like one of the chinese hard steel ones, is it? I said maybe and he put it on the cutter and after a second said he couldn't do it as it would ruin his tool and he didn't have a spare, but he modified the old blade to fit my new fob for free by grinding some small lugs off.
Next I got another fob and blade for the spare and took it to another cobbler with a big order of keys for work. He started to cut it and gave up and said it was too hard. One was from dx.com, the other from aliexpress.