One Key To Unlock Them All
Not one to fear revealing his age, TTAC's Frank Williams says the key to his '65 Dodge Coronet unlocked and started at least four cars: his parents' '64 Plymouth Belvedere and '67 Plymouth Fury; a co-worker's '66 Dodge Polara, and a '68 Valiant belonging to a customer at the grocery store that employed the future blogger. Ancient history, from the time before encryption, yes? Uh, no. KUTV 's consumer sleuth has uncovered the secret truth behind a spate of damage-free break-ins inflicted upon GM vehicles: "master" keys. "Bobbo's friend and co-worker, Clay Collett, owns a 1997 Chevy Blazer. And guess what? The key for Bobbo’s truck opens Clay’s SUV and vice versa Clay’s key opens Bobbo’s door… When we first called General Motors about all this, the spokesperson said there are only so many combinations possible…but he had not heard of any issue with GM keys in the past. Is that so? At Bob’s Lock & Key in west valley, they say they’ve known all about the GM door key situation for GM cars for more than 10 years… when technicians learn that the vehicle is a GM between ‘94 and ‘04, they start with the key from their own Chevrolet service vans. Bob’s say their own GM keys opens the locks of other GM vehicles more than half the time." KUTV's Gephart says Chevy's tackled the problem– leaving owners of vehicles made between 1994 – 2004 SOL. The only possible remedy: change the door locks.
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Reminds me of the time in the mid 80's when a few of us went to a mall in my friend's mother's Dodge Caravan (this was back in High School). We were leaving the mall and got into what we thought was the right van. Said friend unlocked the doors with the key, sat down and started the van. We didn't realize it wasn't the right van until he turned around to back out and noticed the "Baby On Board" sign hanging in the back window. We bailed out of that one quickly and found the right one a few spots down.
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I can verify as fact that the keys to a (rental) '02 Malibu work fine for unlocking/starting a (rental) '02 Sunfire. Of course, the fact taht I was getting Malibu's and Sunfire's as loaners when my new '03 Bonneville was in the shop (repeatedly) is but a small part of why I no longer have any GM car keys.
My dad's Buick keys opened or started several neighbors' GM cars and trucks. I can't remember an instance where they could unlock and start a car.