Saturday morning and I had just woken up when the phone rang.
It was a guy who had lost all of his keys and was calling different locksmiths to find the best price, as he told me. He had a Toyota Auris 2008. I gave him a price, and he immediately asked me when I could come.
I asked him for his location and told him that I would be there in about an hour.
I made a coffee because, after all, it was a Saturday morning, and I started driving to the location. It was in South Rotterdam, so it was pretty convenient for me.
When I arrived, I met Ali, who jumped into my car and gave me directions to where he had parked his car before losing his keys.
Big guy. It almost felt like he couldn't fit in my car.
Never mind. We got to the car and he said, “All yours.”
I kind of like it when they talk to me like that.
The Toyota Auris 2008 key
I already knew that I wasn't going to use the Lishi tool for this particular lock because I knew it wasn't working as smoothly as I would have liked. I also knew that I would be removing the lock to determine the key cuts, so why would I use my Lishi at all?
That means I grabbed the air pump and the stick, opened the car and the proceeding on removing the lock.
Removing the lock on these cars is also relatively straightforward, which is one of the reasons I prefer this method for this particular job.
The good thing about these locks is that you don't have to completely disassemble the lock to reach the wafers. Once the lock is removed, you can determine the key cuts relatively easily.
There is an important difference between the door lock and the ignition on this particular vehicle. The ignition lock and key use 10 wafers and corresponding cuts, while the door lock has 8.
That means there are two cuts that I cannot determine directly from the door lock.
It isn't as bad as it may sound because I can use my Xhorse key-cutting machine to work through the possible combinations. However, I might still have to try several cuts before finding the blade that turns correctly in the ignition.
The key type was TOY43, which I personally don't particularly like compared with some other keys.
Don't ask me why.
By the way, the first possible combination I tried was correct, even though I didn't know the ignition combination beforehand.
It was roughly a 1-in-6 chance.
And that's how I knew it was going to be a good day.
Programming the Toyota Auris immobiliser
Now came the programming part, which is actually one of the reasons I'm writing this article about this particular Toyota Auris.
In the past, this vehicle wasn't as straightforward to program through the diagnostic connection, and the procedure could require much more work ,striping down all the dashboard to remove the immobox.
Fortunately, that's no longer the case for this vehicle.
I did have a moment of panic when my Xhorse couldn't reset the immobiliser system, but luckily, the Autel diagnostic equipment managed to do it.
After that, I was able to program the key successfully.
I also programmed the remote functions. This took a little more time because the driver's door sensor wasn't working properly, although it wasn't completely inoperative.
Eventually, everything came together.
Toyota Auris key replacement completed
And this is really the point of the story.
If I had known beforehand that this particular Toyota Auris required extensive dashboard removal, I would have quoted Ali a different price, and I possibly wouldn't have taken the job.
I'm glad that solutions like this are available for normal everyday cars. I don't like having to quote a higher price for a 2008 Toyota than I would for a much newer Ford simply because of the programming procedure.
The Toyota Auris is a relatively common car, and when all keys are lost, having a practical solution for producing and programming a replacement key makes a big difference for both the locksmith and the customer.
Another Toyota Auris back on the road.
Until next time,
Aggelos
