Hi all - great source of info here and was hoping someone might recommend how I could get a 2nd remote key fob ? Recently bought the car which only had one key fob. I'm in the surrey/london area if there are also any recommendations on where I can go to get this done ? thanks all

you can do it yourself.  you can get a blade cut on ebay from a photo of your key.  you can buy the rest of the key from ebay (the plastic bit with immobiliser chip in it - but make sure it is the right type of chip, they vary).  

then you need a good ELM327 fault code reader. eg. one from tunnelrat electronics - less then £20.

then you need a windows laptop.

then download Forscan software free. then register for the extended licence which is free (you need this to do key programming)

I did it recently. key cutting and the rest of the key cost just under twenty in total on ebay (2 separate sellers)

I had a laptop, and I already had the fault code reader from a previous need for it.

Depends if you want the messing about with all that, otherwise you will probably have to pay a hundred quid to get your key cloned but I don't know anyone to reccomend. 

Thanks for the respose -  not something I'd thought about or was possible so will look into it. Any other folks recommend someone who can do this locally please ?

6 hours ago, Axis said:

Thanks for the respose -  not something I'd thought about or was possible so will look into it. Any other folks recommend someone who can do this locally please ?

Like you, I was obsessed for a week after I got my car to get a spare 'remote' key, but cost, complexity and hassle soon wore me down and for the last year I've been quite happy with my single remote key and my spare mechanical one. Trust me, the longer you have the car, other priorities will swamp you LOL

Timpsons do it for about £150 iirc.

I was also very worried about only having one key but couldn't get another due to cost...however I've now owned the car 18 months and only just been reminded of that by this thread.

 

2 minutes ago, TomsFocus said:

Timpsons do it for about £150 iirc.

 

Should have said, I was quoted a similar price, which for me, was about £140 too much, it's a ***** key for a 15 year old car LOL 🤣

Get yourself a dumb key aka a key with no remote control function.

Faced with the same problem, high cost key (v) low value Focus, I bought a dumb key from my local car key specialist shop.

As I remember it cost in the region of £30 a few years ago. He made it and programmed it to the car so that it was recognised at the ignition key barrel on the steering column to allow the car to start.

On the older Focus (early MK2) it worked easily.

On my later Focus (MK2.5) once you unlocked the car with the dumb key you had 30 secs to get the key into the ignition otherwise the alarm would go off.

Shop around, there was quite a price variation for exactly the same thing.

ScaniaPBman.

Random question, can you use a fob from another Focus of the same age and just reprogram it? I know you can with some cars but never quite figured it out for Ford cars.

yes I believe so if it has the same type of immobiliser chip in it eg. 4d60, 4d63 and the same bit number eg 128bit. loads of used ones on ebay. 

if the key comes from somewhere like timpsons then I am not sure it would work if you wanted to use it on a different car with repogramming

if you buy a car new with two keys, the chips in them have different IDs and the car ECU is programmed to accept those keys. if you get a copy from timpsons, the key is cloned so the new key does not have a separate id, I assume the chips in them are different because it needs the chip to be programmable to copy the ID of the first key to it. So I don't know quite what happens if you want to reuse it.