Your Car Key Number will save you

Imagine the worst. You’ve lost your car keys and you’ve got somewhere important to be, a meeting, your daughters ballet exam or even just work. Even worse would be a holiday flight, a wedding or even a funeral. We’ve seen every one of these scenarios and there’s nothing worse than hearing someone who’s desperate and in a hurry to get somewhere. When you find yourself in this position, you need all the help you can get. The best help is your car Key Number.

For us to cut a key, we need to know which bits of the key are cut off, to give it the correct shape. Take a standard Ford key, for a 2011 Fiesta. The key is cut as a wavy line, along the length of the key.

Making a key without knowing the shape is very hard. For a start, for the Ford Fiesta, there are 6000 different combinations that it could be, six thousand different keys!

So, when you lose it, and we need to cut a new one in a hurry, any help we can get cuts down all the guess work. Knowing your Key Number will

1. Put you in the top 1% of car owners. Most do not know what a key number is
2. Save you alot of money when you need a new key.

I have my key car key number, where should I keep it safe? Good question. If you lose your car keys, and you keep it in the car, that is locked, that’s not good. It means someone must break into your car to get it, which defeats the point of having it. We recommend keeping a digital record.

What happens if you don’t have a car key number?

Making keys when they’ve been lost is like trying to do a jigsaw puzzle blindfolded. Imagine just a ten-piece jigsaw, but you can’t see it. You just have your hands, fumbling around, trying to make them fit. It’s hard. Making keys without knowing the shape is similar. Getting the right combination of key shape can feel nearly impossible. However, when a key number is available, we’re able to cut a car key blind. It’s as if we can see inside the car lock, without having to take it apart.

With the new key cutting machines on the market, if you have a key number, we can just type it in to a computer, and your key is available in seconds. This is how the dealers can make you a car key without seeing the car. They’ve a record of your key number in a database.

So hopefully now, you understand how important your car key number is.

Where can I find this car key number?

It all depends on what make of car you have. In the good old days, they would stamp the key number onto the lock. This way, if you lost your car keys, you could take a lock out and get the number. But it’s not that easy anymore. Look through our list of manufacturers for a rough guide.

Ford Car key number

Amazingly, they dominate the UK market, but have no central database of car key numbers. When the car is sold, it’s the job of the sales person to write down your car key number and keep it on record at the branch that sold it. However, half the car sales people we talk to haven’t been told what key numbers are.   They don’t know where to find them, or where to record them when the car is sold.

So, the chances of them recording tyour car key number at the point of sale is slim. The other problem Ford have is that over half of new cars go straight to Lease for large companies. This means that the issuing dealer is handling hundreds of cars being sold in a short space of time. So little things like car key numbers can easily be forgotten.

This means if you call your local Ford dealer, it’s unlikely they will have your car key number. The small family run businesses are much better at this than the large, city dealerships.

Ford car key number tag

The key number is stamped into a small black tag and it looks like it something that can be throw away, a meaningless piece of plastic. Unfortunately, it’s often the only record available. There is another version of a Ford key number and that is a bit of a one-off. The new Ford Ka is based on the Fiat 500 and the keys are based on the Fiat system. The good news is that they supply a real information card and it looks important enough to keep.

Vauxhall Car key number

Vauxhall are excellent at record keeping. They have a central database and if you don’t have your key number, they’ll get it within a few hours. If your car is older than ten years, it can take twenty-four hours, which is still impressive (compared to Ford). They also supply the car key number on a security card from new.  This is normally inside the black wallet that comes with the car. It’s called the security car pass and looks like this.

Citroen and Peugeot Car Key Number

Again, the French are excellent at record keeping. They too can access the database instantly and supply you with the key number. You may already have it, here is what to look for.

Unfortunately, this can look unimportant and get overlooked, but all the information is here you need.

Fiat Car Key Number

As we’ve said, excellent record keeping from the Italians, (you can see Ford are starting to look bad now). They can access the car key number, although this can take a few days. Here is what you are looking for.

You can see in this photo that the print can rub off! This means that the card can be useless.

Other Manufacturers

With other manufacturers, you don’t get anything like a card with the key number on it, but they do keep excellent records. Toyota, Honda, Kia, Hyundai and Mitsubishi can access this information quickly to help you. This is how they order keys for you.

Volkswagen, Audi, Seat and Skoda Car Key Number

Forget it. Back in 2006 something changed for these manufacturers. In the olden days, certain dealers could get codes easily, however, they stopped that so long ago. Now, the dealerships don’t even see the code. It’s as if this is top secret information. So, it’s no use asking them.

A lottery for you.

As you can see, it can be easy or hard to get a key number from your dealership. It all depends on the make of car you have and how professional and knowledgeable the dealership is. The good news is that if you can’t get a key number, a good Auto Locksmith can get this for you, by picking the lock and working out the shape of your key. It isn’t easy and so you’ll be charged more when you lose your car keys. That’s why we are so keen to get the message out about know where your car key number is.

We hope this has helped. Don’t forget to check out to see if you have your car key number. Then make a digital record, we call this Photokey.

Take Care of those keys