I recently purchased a used Prius 2008. I lost one of the keyless remotes and purchased two on EBAY. I took them to the dealer at SF Toyota and was told that they had been previously programmed and therefore were not usable on my Prius. Do I have to buy a new one from the dealer? Has anyone had a similar experience and how do I deal with this?
It depends. Many dealers don't like to work with keys that come ebay. Now there is a way to hopefully get your non-smart key working. Just do a search here and do it yourself with the programming. It's actually somewhat a silly process but it does work. I was able to get it with my Prius and the key I bought works fine. Now generally a prius key will not work fully if it's been used over 128 times. That means , it can be used to start your Prius up but not unlock the doors. But it's the key is relatively new, a Prius will be able to read a key properly and accept fully as a useable key. Oh...and one doesn't program a Prius key. Rather a Prius matches up with a new key. There is no programming of a Prius key so I'm not sure what your dealer actually told you or if they were simply trying to get you to purchase a new key from you. Steve
To work as a smart key, the replacement fob must be new(ish) and the dealer must do the programming. The car can be programmed for a dumb fob at home. Likewise, a smart fob can be used as a dumb fob even after it is used, and you can do the programming yourself. In this case it will start the car when inserted into the dash slot, but it won't unlock the doors. Tom
i recommend going to a dealer (or specialist garage) and have them delete ALL the keys in the memory except for your working fob. then have them re-seed the used keys: it's hit or miss but worth a shot. through experience, my take is introducing "used" keys to your car won't automatically kick off the older keys (like they would with a new FOB)
