Awesome Ford Engineering!

[EyeMWing]

Can't remember if I've bitched about this before, but probably not. So yeah, I recently bought a '98 Escort ZX2 off one of my half sisters. Nice little car. Immaculate condition. Very impressive for a woman driver 😛

So, naturally, I did what any new car owner would do; went to Home Depot and had them make like 10 extra keys. I tested them all, of course, in the ignition, and they all worked. The real shocker came a few days later when I tried to UNLOCK THE FVCKING DOOR with one of the copies.

Apparently, the door lock mechanisms are far more sensitive than the ignition. Confirmed this with the Ford dealership, apparently they're the "only ones who can make working copies" haha no. Went back to HD, bought a few blanks, and made copies myself instead of having them do it (we have old circa-1970 key copying equipment, works better than the modern automated stuff if you know what you're doing and have the micrometer adjusted right). Those copies worked right. :boo; Ford and Home Depot.

 

[acid45]

.......

 

[HomeBrewerDude]

its called revenue generating design!

 

[JeffreyLebowski]

I don't that it's Ford is the only one that can make them, it's that you need a compitent Locksmith to make it. I dealt with this last week. I had a motorcycle ignition I needed a key for, took the ignition to one shop and they took 3 days to make a key which didn't work. They then told me the ignition was bad. I took it to another shop and the guy had a key cut that worked in about a minute.

 

[JeffreyLebowski]

BTW, the ignition in my ex roomates zx2 would work with any key you put in it.

 

[Budmantom]

What do you expect from Home Depot.

Tom

 

[EyeMWing]

Originally posted by: JeffreyLebowski
BTW, the ignition in my ex roomates zx2 would work with any key you put in it.

Uhhhh wow. That's excellent. I may as well replace it with a pushbutton.

 

[dug777]

Originally posted by: JeffreyLebowski
BTW, the ignition in my ex roomates zx2 would work with any key you put in it.

i can open just about any late 80s/early 90s mazda323/fordlaser hatch (well-i've tried it on at least 5, and it didnt work only once) with my 323key-never tried them in an ignition tho' 🙂

 

[EyeMWing]

Originally posted by: dug777

Originally posted by: JeffreyLebowski
BTW, the ignition in my ex roomates zx2 would work with any key you put in it.

i can open just about any late 80s/early 90s mazda323/fordlaser hatch (well-i've tried it on at least 5, and it didnt work only once) with my 323key-never tried them in an ignition tho' 🙂

Kinda makes you wonder what car thieves are doing wasting their times on rareish early-90's Hondas, when there's plenty of 80's-late90's Fords to be had 😛

 

[daveymark]

Originally posted by: dug777

Originally posted by: JeffreyLebowski
BTW, the ignition in my ex roomates zx2 would work with any key you put in it.

i can open just about any late 80s/early 90s mazda323/fordlaser hatch (well-i've tried it on at least 5, and it didnt work only once) with my 323key-never tried them in an ignition tho' 🙂

more details please. specifically, did you know the owners of the cars you tried them on?

 

[dug777]

Originally posted by: daveymark

Originally posted by: dug777

Originally posted by: JeffreyLebowski
BTW, the ignition in my ex roomates zx2 would work with any key you put in it.

i can open just about any late 80s/early 90s mazda323/fordlaser hatch (well-i've tried it on at least 5, and it didnt work only once) with my 323key-never tried them in an ignition tho' 🙂

more details please. specifically, did you know the owners of the cars you tried them on?

two of them were friends cars-the others i've just casually stuck the key in the door and tried in car parks after i discovered it worked on my friends lasers-but 1)i'm not a thief and 2)the novelty wore off pretty quick...

i suspect that the ignition wouldn't work- and anyway in WA it's mandatory to have an immobiliser so it wouldnt help me anyway if i wanted to start one (which i don't).

 

[cmdrmoocow]

Very interesting info - I'll keep that in mind.

 

[EyeMWing]

Originally posted by: cmdrmoocow
Very interesting info - I'll keep that in mind.

Well, now we know who our resident car thief is.

 

[cmdrmoocow]

Originally posted by: EyeMWing

Originally posted by: cmdrmoocow
Very interesting info - I'll keep that in mind.

Well, now we know who our resident car thief is.

Not necessarily. I just recently lost my keys and I need to get a duplicate made from my parent's keys.


(Made my Dodge, not Ford - but the same situation might apply)

 

[Black88GTA]

That same kind of thing happened with my old roommate's '94 SC2. He had one key which he had been using ever since his family got the car brand new, and one spare. He finally ended up losing the one and had to use the spare...which of course didn't work. After 189k miles, the key (and ignition) were pretty worn out.

So, we "aged" the unused key with a Dremel. ~189k in 5 minutes. Fired the car up first try 🙂.