When I bought my '04 R53 last week, it only came with one key. It was coded and all, but the metal wings applique was coming off... Anyway, I needed to have a working, good primary key.

I sucked it up and went to the Mini dealer - yeah, paid the $152.77 for the new coded key (for my VIN). Since this is an '04 and not later '05 or '06, we can't program the keys ourselves, so there was to be another $165 fee to program it to my car at the dealership. Highway robbery, as you well know. And then today it hit me: I don't have to have the new key programmed - I have the OLD key, and the OLD key IS programmed to the car (power locks, primarily).

It was too simple to swap the innards to/from both keys. Simple instructions (from Valvashon) to open the key are below: pop it open, pop out the circuit board and battery, switch the boards, snap them shut and voila', done! There's no cutting the thing open, no prying out the parts - everything just snaps together. The chip isn't a problem because the new key was already chipped for my car. So now the OLD key does start and run the car, it just won't remote-lock or -unlock the doors, which is all I need a backup key to do. A savings of $165.

https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...rbishment.html