Comments on: I need to know why it costs over $ 100 to get a key made for a 2005 Ford Taurus?

By: Ford Goddess

Ford Goddess — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 03:24:57 +0000

To add to srpsa’s EXCELLENT answer to your question, a good portion of the expense goes to paying for the diagnostic tools required at the dealership level to carry out most diagnostics and key programming, in the case of your question. As posted above, most dealers charging $100 per FLAT RATE hour, the mechanic doing the actual job only gets $25 of that. The IDS diagnostic scan tool with laptop and VCM needed to program your PATS key, for example costs $10,000. Now do the math to figure out how PATS keys will need to be programmed to recoup that cost, as well as paying the servicing tech the $12.50 (@ 0.5 labour @ $25 per hour to the tech) to do the actual programming. Hope this helps.

By: æva

æva — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 03:24:57 +0000

You’re screwed and they know it – so they charge you as much as legally possible – every car company would do the same.

By: chris77518

chris77518 — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 03:24:57 +0000

Labor rates. a dealer is going to charge you 75 to 100 dollars just touch your key or car.

By: pedro7of9

pedro7of9 — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 03:24:57 +0000

ur lucky…a car and driver writer rented a MB in europe and lost the key…1200 dollars…

By: srpsa

srpsa — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 03:24:57 +0000

It all comes down to the labor and time standards. The key itself of course doesn’t cost $100.00 but the shops labor rate is in the neighborhood of $75-$80.00. The standard rate in our shop is 1 hour to program a new key to the vehicles PATS(passive anti-theft system). It doesn’t take an hour but what Dr. spends an entire hour with you during a visit and charges you $200.00+ instead of the 5 minutes he spends just talking to you? You are paying for the proffessional, trained, necessary technician. By the way, there is a common misconception that the techs recieve that $75-$80.00 an hour. WRONG!! Most techs make between $15-$20.00 a flatrate hour depending on training, the rest goes to the shop. If you don’t know what flatrate is and how the shops benefit from it I suggest you research it or better yet talk to a flatrate tech. You won’t be disappointed in what you learn.