Dodgy Key Man
I'm holding out for a hero.
He's gotta be good, and he's gotta be fast
And he's gotta be charging half price
With apologies to Bonnie Tyler
I lost two car keys.
One key for each car. Maybe in the Irish sea. Maybe in a Chester foodcourt. Maybe in pub guest rooms in Wales or Nottinghamshire. Impossible to tell. I do the token ring-round, just in case. No luck.
If you want to hide something valuable, give it to a toddler.
Mine rummages in bags, extracts objects (e.g. toy car, box of raisins, bunch of keys), and secretes them out of sight in cupboards, drawers and trash cans.
Or it could have been me.
I’m increasingly distracted. Trying to prevent said toddler from harming h-self or others’ property. I trail gaping bags. I set one thing down here to attend to another thing there.
So it could have been me I guess.
Doesn’t matter. The situation is what it is.
I need two keys for two cars. Check the amazing math. 2 x 2 = 2!
Both keys combine the physical key bit with that clicky bit that opens the doors without me having to use the physical key bit. I am unwilling (perhaps unable) to live without this functionality.
I’m down to one key for each of two cars. 1 + 1 = 2. Many people would settle for that, but given my recent track record of losing keys, I figure I should stump up for the backups.
I have two options.
Go to the dealer, or
Go to Dodgy Key Man
Which sounds more fun to you?
It’s time to reach out to Dodgy Key Man.
I met DKM when we bought one of our cars and it only had one key. The second hand dealer (🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 highly recommend) commissioned Dodgy Key Man to forge a second key. And just as well. I lost the other one within weeks.
My co-head of household doesn’t like the sound of this. Dodgy Key Man’s dodgy keys may affect car UX and resale value. DKM’s dodgy keys may cause all sorts of trouble.
It behooves me to investigate doing this the legitimate way: via the OEM dealer.
Let me tell you about the OEM dealer.
By OEM I mean the original equipment manufacturer. The one who’s badge adorns my car. Not the highly recommended second hand dealer I procure my second hand cars from (commission link 👆).
As far as the OEM dealer is concerned, I’m a cheap b-stard who should just buy a new car.
The OEM dealer won’t make it convenient or cost-effective to do things through him. Many people would experience frustration or anger in this situation. I drink in every word.
This f-cker is giving me everything I need to justify a call to Dodgy Key Man.
The OEM dealer tells me a new key for the big car will cost £400 + VAT + labour (so he means ±£650).
The OEM dealer brings his liturgy of charges to a close. He looks me in the eye. He wants to see pain. What he sees is a smile as wide as my face.
Wonderful. I say. Tell me more.
It just gets better from here. The next steps in the process require me to…
present myself, my ID and the car at the dealership for verification, before the order will be sent to Germany
wait two weeks for the key to be sent back to the OEM dealer
bring the car to the dealership for a day (no available appointments for a month) so they can program the clicky bit to work AND
I actually need to buy 2 keys because Dodgy Key Man’s prior forgery will be deactivated by this process somehow, for some reason
Coincidentally, I have experienced the thrill of taking a day off work to bring the big car to this very dealership to drop it in for the day so they can call me six hours later to say that upon investigation (five hours and forty five minutes ago), the specialised part that took two weeks to arrive from Germany is insufficient absent another part that will take another two weeks to arrive from Germany.
So maybe, says the OEM dealer, we can do the key thing when I return for my next appointment for the other thing in a month or so’s time.
The more he talks, the more time and money I save.
A new key for the little car costs less, £150 + VAT + labour, but I’m still on the hook to take it to the OEM dealer (different dealer) to go through the proof of ownership rigmarole, wait for the key to be sent from somewhere, leave the car in for the day and collect it that night - another operation that will require 2 cars, 2 adults, toddler wrangling etc etc.
I report my findings to the co-head of household and receive the desired authorisation.
It’s time to reach out to Dodgy Key Man.
DKM is in high demand. He moves where the spirit takes him. He’s not one to stick to a schedule. But he’s still less of a headache than the OEM dealership.
He says he’ll come Thursday.
It’s 6pm and no sign of Dodgy Key Man.
Somehow, I must summon him. But I have no leverage. I need him more than he needs me. I suspect Dodgy Key Man is immune to pleas, threats or bullying. I’m no good at psy-ops.
It’s time to unleash a charm offensive.
At 18:45 on the dot, he trundles into our drive in an unmarked panel van.
He leaves the engine on. In case he needs to make a quick getaway. In case the cops come past.
Really, it’s to power his key grinding thing I think. The inside of his van is kitted out - a laboratory. Machines, electronics and hand tools vie for space on jury-rigged workbenches. The sides of the van are crawling with drawers. Everything has its place. Everything is labeled. I present him with two keys to copy. He swivels in his chair, whipping his hands in and out of drawers, and tapping his fingers and thumbs on laptop keys, touchscreens and buttons. He pulls together matchbox-sized key cases, small strips of metal, and wee circuit boards. He sources details of secret key codes.
He chats to me about his business.
His territory is a 1 hour radius from his home. Business is good, too good. It’s a lot of work. He’s been doing it a long time. Also, it’s a lot of keeping up. You have to spend money to make money, he tells me. His vehicle has six figures worth of equipment in it - that’s why it’s unmarked. The OEMs are always trying to cut him out of the game - with ever more elaborate technology to make it harder for him to forge keys. But he always figures it out. And they always give him more to do. Because now you need secret codes for headlights, and all sorts of other bits. But he doesn’t want to do that stuff. He prefers to forge keys.
My cars are so old it’s a cinch1. A couple of years older and I wouldn’t need him at all. I could just watch a YouTube video and have at it with a screwdriver.
20 minutes later and he’s done.
He asks me if I’d like to buy his business.
Yes. I would.
Well, he says, I have his number.
My hero disappears into the end of the night.
Many of you have emailed, DM’d and addressed your prayers to me in the hopes of learning about my patented second hand car purchasing policy
So here it is: I buy second hand cars that are high spec/trim and in good nick for their age. That age is usually ±9 years. I feel that this is a real sweet spot. They’re priced at a fraction of their original value. They’ve got a lot of life left in them, and if you have a good mechanic (which I do) to keep up with servicing, and pounce on repairs in a timely fashion it can be a nice little racket. I try to resell them after 2 years, then buy a new second hand car 2 or more years younger. They tend to hold their value surprisingly well. Once I sold a car 2 years later for twice what I paid for it. But that’s an anomaly. In my more pompous moments, I also like to crow that my strategic stinginess is also the most environmentally friendly way to own a car - because a high percentage of a car’s lifetime CO2 is emitted during production and scrapping. But that is only rhetorically accurate. In fact, it’s bullshit.
But it feels nice to reuse and repair. And have access to a CD player.
Also, I can’t justify the cost of a new car.
One important lesson I learned very late in my car buying career: only buy from a second hand dealer. i.e. no private sales. The six-month warranty is a godsend. The last time I didn’t do that, I bought a car, and spent the next 6 months spending the same amount again on taxes and repairs, only to suffer this heartbreak.
On the sunny side, this was how I met my awesome mechanic.
Your tale makes good testimonial material for Apple’s AirTags.
Also, “secretes” made me laugh, visualizing objects that probably have been slobbered on.
Hilarious.