Do you still have the hitch?

 

Hitch sold over the past weekend to an eBay member for $300. sorry it couldn't have been to one of our forum members.

I still have a BRAND NEW and un-programmed remote for the LR. Dealer cost $350, sell for $200. You don't want to get caught locking your only key in the truck...

100% BUY-BACK guarantee on this fob if a LR dealer fails to program it. It is an OEM new and un-programmed fob for a LR. I have sold two of them and don't need it sitting on the shelf.

 

The folks at Joe Bullard Land Rover in Mobile, AL, would differ with you about that statement. Kindly call Tito McKinney, Service Adviser, and see what the two of you come up with, because he was very specific that a new fob that has never been programmed is virgin and will be able to be matched to any LR that takes that kind of fob.

That said, aftermarket fobs won't work; even though they look exactly the same as factory ones. I know this for a fact.

The fob I'm selling has a 100% guarantee on it, so long as a LR dealer is the entity that programs it to your vehicle. That should comfort any doubters.

 

I do not wish to get into a debate over this. The people you spoke with are incorrect. From the LR3 Service manual:

The transponder is an integral part of the Printed Circuit
Board (PCB) located within the head of the ignition key...
...The transponder has a 256 byte Electronic Erasable
Programmable Read Only Memory (EEPROM), which
is programmed with vehicle identification data and a
unique identification code. This information is stored in
one of 30 key 'slots' within the CJB. When energized, the
transponder emits the coded information which is received
by the CJB. The CJB checks that the key is valid by
confirming the received data before granting permission
to start the engine. The information programmed into the
transponder cannot be overwritten. If a key is lost or is
no longer required, WDS can be used to disable the key to
prevent it being used on the vehicle.

I appoligize that you have been mislead by the dealership, and if this ruins a sale, but if nothing else, it will save you the price of return shipping after it does not work. Bottom line is the key does not get programmed at all, it gets enabled in the CJB. It being 'virgin' has nothing to do with programability.

 

My own science projects would appear to confirm Dave's replies. As all LR keys are sourced from the UK, they are ordered with a VIN # which allows the CNC machine to cut the blank to the factory stored key pattern and also flashes the EPROM with the seed #. When I looked up the chip they use, it appears to actually be a flash once Philips variant so there are two hurdles to recycling a used key, you can buy a blank EPROM but you will have to be adept at surface mount component replacement and more difficult you have to be able to write the seed into the chip.

The bit the dealer does when your key comes in (or you do yourself with your trusty Faultmate) is to "pair" the key(s) with the CJB in your LR. Any keys not present at the pairing party are marked inactive. So your dealer not only needs the new key that arrived from the UK with the blank cut but they also need all of the keys in your possession if you want them to keep working.

Doubtless there are cheap Chinese clones of the LR key which fell off the factory conveyor on their way to LR UK and these end up on eBay (yes I bought one but got refunded) but they are missing the vital seed program step. If you try and pair these to your LR with Faultmate (or even the dealer) you get some message back from the software about a failed challenge/authentication. The dealer showed me on their SDD software and it was close enough to what my Faultmate answered too.

So those "virgin" keys are half baked and the only way I think you could make them work is for a locksmith with a "clone" tool which reads all the data out of a valid key and programs it back into the virgin. At that point, as far as the LR is concerned, they are both the same keys. Again, I'm pretty sure this is a do-once deal.

The only use for "second hand" keys on eBay is either science project tear downs (as I did) or to salvage them for new buttons/battery as a donor.

 

And I happen to have the photo I took off their diagnostic