Way back in, oh, 1990 or so a customer came into the drive through at the Dodge dealership I worked at and began ranting uncontrollably. Once we got him settled down enough to string together a sentence we figured out the source of his ire. His Dodge Shadow did not have a unique key! It seems the gentleman had exited a shopping mall, hopped in his car and drove away only to discover that his ashtray was clean and his cigarettes were missing. He returned to the spot he had vacated, only to discover his own identical Shadow parked in the next aisle. Of course his next stop was the dealership where he demanded that all his locks be changed and he wanted a guarantee that his locks would be unique. This did not happen.

Excluding my own old Chryslers with worn out keys, this was the first time I had heard of new car keys that were actually an exact match. 17 or so years later, it was definitely not the only time I’ve heard it.

Over at TTAC today, Mr. Farago tells the tale of GM keys from 94 to 04 which seem to open other keys with ease. It got me thinking about realistic expectations.

It would be interesting to go to the door lock display at the local Home Depot and rip apart a bunch of Weiser boxes. I’ll bet that out of every 20 sets, any given key opens at least 2. Many people blindly believe that their car comes with keys that are completely unique to their wheels. Let’s face it folks, a lot of cars are built in today’s world and there are only so many possible lock codes for each style of key. It isn’t realistic to expect your car to be unique.