lost keys..need help

I'd like to see it

 

In light your experience, any thoughts about "Who should and should NOT buy a 2001-03 Prius"?

Our +12 year old cars are going to enter a phase where Toyota replacement parts and technical skills are going to decline. The small cadre here and "Prius Technical Stuff" will soon enough look like the New Zealand, 'gray market' owners of the NHW10. Already NHW11 documentation falls into the 'used book' category. Then there is the problem of diagnostic tools. In effect, 'waiting for the wheels to fall off.'

Then I keep getting +500 miles per tank.

Bob Wilson

 

Are you forecasting these two events?

 

As far as I know, documentation for anything later than 2012 falls into the 'non-book' category - Helm, Inc., has been the distributor of the printed documentation, but no longer receives anything from Toyota to distribute except owners' manuals. All else is online at techinfo. So, we still enjoy the same documentation support as the latest and greatest Toyota models.

Even that seems less of a problem with the wide use of Techstream, and the availability of a bunch of the diag information for other uses like ScanGauge ... not to mention the fact that our vehicles were early enough in the OBD-II game to still have blinkenlights as an alternative to scantools.

I think it's really mostly going to be the inevitable decline in parts availability that starts eating into practicality.

-Chap

 

Funny, in an aggravating, sad kind of way. These types of experiences have happened to me which is why I now try to do as much of this as I can myself. I simply can't trust a mechanic any further than I can throw him - and I have a bad back. So, how much did this adventure cost you, if anything?

BTW, I love how you shift into the future on the last two entries. I suppose that's when you go into the future as the Terminator and wreak havoc on the dealership and its various managers.

I hope all this works out for you - and your parting line to the dealership is "I WON'T be back."

 

Black keys which are otherwise uncut, but have an X217/TR47 key section, are the most useful as these may be made into anything one desires ... Master or Valet mechanical bitting, Master or Sub-master electronic coding.

Third-party keys are black perhaps because the manufacturer doesn't want to "dual inventory" his stock, and he knows that a gray key is really superfluous, as a black key may be made into a gray one, and, similarly, a gray one may be made into a black one, at least functionally speaking.

Besides which, ePay sellers are charging a very stiff premium for gen-u-wine Toyota black keys (these have the logo on them), but no premium for a generic key (these have no logo on them).