Have you ever lost the keys to your rental car? D. did this past weekend, and tells Consumerist that she thought that Alamo’s method of issuing a replacement key was a little bit inefficient and expensive. She was instructed to hire a tow truck at her own expense to bring the car back to the lot, then charged a $250 key replacement fee.
Last weekend, I foolishly dived into the water with my rental car key. Not an electro-remote-clciker key, just a plain-old turn-it-and-it-goes-on key.
I assumed that I’d call the rental place, and they’d charge me something to have a guy drive out with a new key. That’s what happened about ten years ago, when one of my friends lost his key.
Instead, they told me to call a tow truck. We towed the car back to the lot (at my own expense!) and then paid the “Key Replacement Fee” ($209, discounted from $250). This sounds a little excessive–after all, my car at home has at least two spare keys, precisely for situations like this. Why not Alamo?
What have your experiences been, Consumerist Hive Mind? Was D.’s experience unusual, or understandable?
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How about an article on the scam that is programmable security keys for cars?
Having key prices increase over 5000% seems like a complete rip off to me.
I bought a new ford last year and a replacement key for my vehicle is over $300 from the dealer. Even at $100 cost to the rental agency, having to send an employee to get it replaced has its costs and inconveniences, so $300 doesn’t sound unreasonable to me.
I just paid $300 for a new key for my mini. The days of a $2 key from a hardware store are gone.
@ OP – “We towed the car back to the lot (at my own expense!) “
Really!?!?!? No WAY!?!?!?!?
You mean you jumped into a pool of water and lost the car keys and in effect stranded a rental car that you signed for and were responsible for…. and they MADE you tow the car back at your expense?!?!?!?!
POOR YOU
This sarcastic comment has been brought to you from the folks at whinybeotches.com, where we really don’t want to hear the poor me speech when, in fact your were the one that was being rude and/or irresponsible.
When I worked for Enterprise we just charged the customers whatever we paid the dealership for a replacement key. The cars get moved around from office to office so much that it is really hard to get a spare in a timely manner.
So if they had the key codes in the computer for the car and can give those to the dealership, it should have only cost $50-75 at most.
This happened to me in the middle of the Florida keys. Enterprise rep told me I had to tow the car to the nearest Chevy dealer because it had a transponder key or some such rot. Like an idiot, I did, but not back to the nearest Chevy dealer, which was 100 miles away – just to my hotel. The next morning, I called a local branch manager who recommended a locksmith – $150 – $50 AAA discount.
Even better – when I called Enterprise out on their rep’s error, they refunded me the $230 towing charge, so the incident only wound up setting me back $100 when all was said and done. Lesson: don’t lose your key. Lesson#2: If you do, call a LOCKSMITH, not your rental company…most locksmiths can even make transponder keys; they just cost more. Lesson#3: Enterprise customer service FTW.
I work at a dealership, cars are towed to us all the time for key reprograms. Most of the time the vehicle has to be there for the reprogramming process, and the dealership can’t afford to send techs out to reprogram keys all day. So if you count the tow, the cost of the key and labor for the tech to reprogram it, plus the downtime on the rental, $209 seems kind of cheap really. A rental company where I live would probably have to pay more than that.
As a previous Rental Station Car Manager Let me reveal a couple of facts:
1. The reason the key chain may sometimes contain both sets of keys is that when the rental car company either sends the car to auction or back to the manufacturer they need two sets of keys. The cars need to be auctioned or returned with every item. Keys are cheap. If you ever want to see a rental car agency get really angry demand them to remove seats from a van. You cannot imagine how difficult it can be to match those seats back up to the van especially if the car goes elsewhere. Ordering the seats can be a small fortune if lost, as they have to be ordered in several different pieces.
2. Keys can be expensive, and if it is a chip key it can require programing.
3. At times it can be less expensive for some operations to use a third party tow company.
4. Even if the cars came with two keys it is imposible to keep a second set of keys at every location. It is rare that a rental spends it’s entire life at one location.
5. Most airports do have key cutting machines, but again there are so many chip keys that they are mostly used to get into cars that people lock keys in.
6. When returning your car see if they want you to leave the keys in the car. Again you would not believe how hard it can be to match keys to a car when you have hundreads of cars on a multi acre airport lot.
7. People who return a car low on gas neglect that someone actually has to take the time to fill the tanks. My favorite was a guy that fought to pay nothing for returning a car to a location that didn’t have a gas pump while the gauge was on E and the low fuel light was on. Car had to be towed. If you think rental car gas is too expensive then fill it up yourself.
8. The customers always think rental car agencys have people standing around waiting to fix such issues as D’s. Rental Car is one of the lowest margin and most difficult industries to make a profit that I have seen.
I recently rented a car at a location with their lost key fee prominently displayed. If I lose the key I would suppose that they could use the spare key to have a new one made and the only cost would be the labor to make the new key. However, these geniuses gave me both keys on a key ring that was permanently fastened together. I guess they figured that if one key stopped working I could use the other, not that this has ever happened to me. One has to wonder what they were thinking of when they did this.
Sir I posted directly above you many reasons why rental car companies do the things they do.
I am not sure for the exact reason why both keys were left on the key chain (fleet disposal policy, car pulled from turnback for rental). But here is the bottom line. A rental car does not spend enough time at a single rental location to justify keeping a spare key at a single locaton. Next time you are in an airport car rental parking lot count the number of different states represented in the available fleet.
My mom lost a key to her 02 Chevy Venture, I replaced it and the fob for under $120 myself. It’s not rocket science. She got gouged, bad.
Audi will charge about $200 for a replacement key fob.
VAG Tacho and some hacking skills let me do it for about $50 on my S4.
$80 for a key? $350?
Ripoff.
Unless it is an extreme high-end model, 95% of the “chipped” keys (which actually have nothing more than 18 cents worth of resistors and antenna in them) can be duplicated by a properly set-up locksmith.
I just had extra keys made for a 2004 Malibu Classic and 2008 Impala at the Serv-U Locksmith at the end of my street. The cost? $9 for both. With tax. Both work flawlessly.
This doesn’t seem pricey to me. Many car owners have already commented how their cars’ keys cost several hundred dollars to replace. I know mine does.
On one hand, that’s what it costs to have new car keys made (especially if the key is one with a chip in it or one that’s combined with key-fob buttons) so it really isn’t unreasonable. After installing my spare key into my remote starter on my old 98 Lexus I inquired about having another spare made & the $200 price tag convinced me to risk it & go without.
On the other hand, I don’t take in money for the use of my car that would pay for its cost several times over like rental companies do. It seems like they could find a way to use the often already-high rental prices to at least subsidize the key replacement fee.
Don’t lose your key! I just lost my rental car key. The company was Dollar rental car out of Providence airport. They didn’t have a spare! Who doesn’t have a spare key? The cost was all mine – towing it to a dealer to make a spare key and the cost of the key itself (which was $250). Ouch!