Tuesday, April 24, 2007

the great car dealer rip-off

I can't believe I lost a $350+ keychain!

Ironically, I misplaced my keychain the day of Sam's adoption in Utah's great hall of justice, the Salt Lake County Courthouse. At the time I thought, oh well - I'd rather gain a kid and lose my keys than the other way round.

But that was when I had no idea how much car dealers charge to replace keys and those little "keyless entry" remote controls. We could get copies of one car key at Lowe's for a couple bucks, but the Toyota key has a "chip" to prevent such convenience. This way, the dealer can charge $45 for the replacement key, $138.75 for the remote, and of course an additional $45 for the "labor" of programming the remote. The Chevy dealer - isn't this amazing - charges the exact same fee for the programming, but the Chevy remote is "only" $45.

This all reaffirms my view of car dealers. It's kind of like dealing with surgeons - I don't want to at all if I can avoid it, and in the end it's just painful. I'm still trying to decide how much it's worth to me to be able to lock/unlock my car remotely. Before kids, I wouldn't have cared at all. Now, I really like it.

2 comments:

Tammy said...

Ouch. That sucks. BOHICA!!! I would want the remote, though, even if it's expensive. I wish my car had a remote. With kids, it really helps.

Cynthia said...

That is insane! Because
1) It doesn't cost that much to make those things
2) You can program the remote yourself! (we sold our Subaru and several months later friends bought a Subaru. We still had one of the remotes and now they use it for their car.)

The conclusion: car dealers exist to rip people off!