Spare car key fob

Most modern cars have electronic fob keys, which are great, except if you need to replace them. They can cost between $200 to $500 to replace. Our 2008 Toyota Prius had one single grungy fob that was starting to fall apart and I wanted to have a spare key cheaper than the $400 Toyota wanted to charge us. So I found Tom’s Keys, which sells a third-party fob ($98) that you can program with an existing working fob (required). The programming steps are ridiculously complex; I thought it was a joke (open, close the driver door 6 times, insert fob twice quickly, open and close door again, push both buttons on fob, repeat, etc. This complexity is from the car manufacturers, not from the key people.) But after many many tries I successfully programmed the new fob to work, so now I have a spare. Tom’s Keys customer service is flaky, and there are some complaints about not being able to program the key, but for me it was worth the try for $100. — KK