two weeks ago i lost a smart key fob. i had my house keys on it and was able to get back inside the house so i must have lost it inside the house. after 2 weeks it still has not surfaced. i thought i might have thrown the thing out so i brought all the garbage next to my prius to see if it would open the door... no luck!

i found out that to replace one of these things is a royal pain in the *ss. i called the nearest toyota dealer and they wanted $240 for the extra FOB and $50 to program in. another dealer told me they wanted $120 to program the FOB. so that is $290 to $360 to get an extra key???
that is not including the aggravation of having to wait at the dealer for 2 hours.

i ended up buying 2 extra fobs on ebay for $150 each. and had it programmed for $50 for both of the FOBs. total damage was $350 for two keys. i asked the dealer and they told me that wether you program 1 fob or 3 fobs its the same price. i read that you can get 4 fobs programmed into the car but this dealer told me that they can only get 3 fobs programmed into the prius.

i also read somewhere that if you lose both fobs you are screwed. they have to tow the car to the dealer and have the entire smartkey icu replaced. basically costing thousands of dollars. just for losing a set of keys. i don't think other car companies have smartkey systems that cost quite as much to replace as toyota. if i knew it would cost hundreds of dollars to replace a lost key i would not have gotten the smart key system.

well i just wanted to vent and wanted to hear your lost key stories. see how much you had to pay. and see if anyone lost both fobs.

 

I don't mean to trivialize the whole unfortunate situation, but the thing that stands out for me is that you actually thought to bring the garbage bags to the car rather than just opening them up and digging like I would have. Brilliant!