Sev

I am a no this week. Careful where you put your keys this time.

Fairly low but more than the average person, I'd say, seeing as you have made the following information available on a public internet forum at various times: - what area you live - what pub you go to - many details about your car - when/you're likely to be playing football - when/where you lost your keys Have you asked Peter Cooper for a quote yet? You could try phoning up an independent, eg http://dealerservices.autotrader.co.uk/47458/contact.htm, and see if they'll do it for any cheaper, but chances are they won't be able to code the immobiliser without the SKC (short code on a plastic tag that the original owner should have been given on your age car, along with a plastic key). So it will mean a trip to VW anyway, unless you quickly become chummy with the nearest resident expert off of one of the various VAG forums, who can 'hack into' your car's electronics to retrieve the SKC for you and thus code new keys. Sorry, I no longer have a Golf, but thought that was how mine worked. All the more reason to pay the going rate and be done with it, perhaps? Unless you'e holding out hope that they were found by an honest citizen and might still get them back. The saving grace here is that after too many failed attempts, the remote code will go out of sync with the car's alarm, and will no longer work without using a second genuine key to re-sync it, meaning that the chancer would have to start walking around testing the key in the barrels manually. I don't know how many presses this takes, and am not in a hurry to go outside and test it, but I seem to recall you get in the region of 10-40 tries before it goes out of sync.

I think Al is pointing out that you should make sure that the dealer re-codes the immobiliser, your current non-remote key, and your alarm, so that your lost key no longer works to run your engine and its remote no longer enables/disables your alarm (the blade would still fit the lock barrels obviously, but they wouldn't be able to disable the alarm or drive your car off). Btw, in the meantime, whilst busy avoiding paying to have it sorted, you should find that you can 'double-turn' the key in the driver's door lock, and this should centrally unlock both doors and tailgate, so the alarm doesn't go off as soon as you open the boot. You've probably only still got the 30seconds to get the key in the ignition, so it may/may not be useful.

Does this mean that you have remote central locking, but only ever had 1 remote key, and 1 non-remote key, and you have lost the remote key? The alarm shouldn't go off even with the non-remote key, as long as you turn the ignition on soon enough after opening the door (I think you get about 30 seconds). VW will sell you a new remote key and code it for you, for about £100 I think (phone Peter Cooper and ask them). You could buy a used remote (usually about £20 off ebay), but you would need to get the right part number for your car as the protocols and radio frequency were not the same for all mkivs. If you still have one remote then it's easy to snap it open and check what part number you need, however if you don't then you might as well pop down Peter Cooper anyway and ask them nicely to look it up for you, then make a note of it yourself. Once you have a new/used remote key, there are three parts to making a new key match your car: (1) Getting a blade cut for it (many locksmiths can do this, not just VW) (2) Matching the remote to your central locking and alarm. You can do this easily yourself if you already have two working keys, using the instructions in your car's manual, otherwise you need special software+cables, which are widely available, not just restricted to VW dealers. (3) Matching the 'chip' (RFID coil) inside the fob to the car's immobiliser. (a) If you have the 'SKC' (4 or 7 digit code on a tag somewhere) for your car then you can pay an independent to program the immobiliser on the cheap, not just VW. (b) If you don't have the SKC then you need to go to VW and their computers can program the immobiliser without the SKC. If I remember correctly, yours is a fairly early mkiv, so it may have the earlier 'immo2' type immobiliser transponder chips in the fob, meaning that even if you buy a compatible used fob off ebay, the transponder chip can be reprogrammed. For later 'immo3' cars, each transponder chip can only be programmed once, which is why VW will also insist that you buy a brand new key from them, even this is not neccesary for earlier cars; if you take a used immo3 key to VW, they will be able to get you a new blade cut and code it to your alarm/locking, but even they won't be able to match it to your immobiliser, you'll have to pay for a new chip-section of the fob, eg this There is an exception to 3(b) which doesnt involve paying VW, but it involves finding a car tech guru with special tools who can read the hex code in your car's cluster, and extract the SKC from it, in order to then use with the other special tools in 3(a). I am assuming that you know no such people, and even if you do, they don't owe you a favour. An alternative to (a) and (b) is to carefully remove the chip from your old key (it will be hidden somewhere inside), and insert it into the 'new' ebay one. However, if this is your only remaining key, and you break it, then you're shafted.