Fixing the broken key of my VW Polo at home

I was told that Volkswagen would charge around Rs 6,000 for a key replacement.

BHPian prerak.kataria recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

What happened

The key of my 2016 VW Polo GT had started showing its age. The ignition mechanism of VW vehicles is very hard and resistive hence the key gives up rather soon.

I am not sure of the price quoted by VW for this, but my friends have told me it's almost 6,000/- INR for a key replacement. Mine did not need to be replaced, it was working perfectly, it's just that the key blade was coming loose from its place (That price could have been for a new key with the board, not sure). The key blade is mounted to the flip mechanism in 2 pieces and it is not one single unit, this made replacing it easy for sure but this design coupled with the hard ignition mechanism of my Polo meant that it became a weak point and made the flip key mechanism fracture like so.

This is what the Key blade mechanism on the new key shell looked like.

Link for the Key Shell used.

Replacement Key Shell

I found a third party key shell on Amazon for Rs 800. I am not sure of the latest pricing or availability but I will surely share the link to the product. The key shell comes with a new flip mechanism and a blank blade, you can either get the blade carved from a local key shop or swap blades, because you have to open the key shells to insert the board into a new one anyway.

This is what the replacement key shell looked like

Both the keys had to be exploded open to swap/insert parts to make the key function.

I followed this pretty thorough video to do it. You can do the same, other things and steps which were slightly different or can be done differently will be listed ahead.

Look out for

In the video, the replacement key shell has a screw-on lock, but the key shell I used did not, it was the standard, just like the original Pin lock. Another thing to look out for is the width of the mounting region of the blade.

The stock blade is thicker than the Blade replacement key shell's mechanism can take, I had to grind down mine (with the help of my Father, he is very good with such stuff and loves to help me in such things all the time, huge shoutout to him) to make the Original blade fit.

If you look closely, you will notice the difference in width. We ground down that area twice or thrice checking each time by fitting it back in. When we were satisfied with the fit, it did not even need the locking pin it had, because the fit was that snug Anyway, the pin was inserted to lock it in.

I installed everything in the new shell, something else you can do is to reuse the flip mechanism in your old key shell. I managed to damage my old key shell while trying to open it as it requires some force to open it and where there is force involved, some damage is bound to happen.

Why do I recommend doing so?

The third-party key shell must be made out of lower quality grade materials as it is almost half the weight of the original, some users might not like that and because the problem lies just with the flip key mechanism, replacing that alone should do the trick for you.

Any key shop will be happy to help you with this, be an aware consumer and know the cost of key shell and relatively less labour involved and pay accordingly.

To make up for the slightly different grade plastic used and the weight lost, I used a hard shell plastic key case which was dipped in Carbon fibre. I think I paid 1200/- for this and it retails for anywhere between Rs 1200 to 1500.

I would say it is a good glow up for sure, from a slightly fractured key to this. My key blade had not fallen out of its place yet. I was not going to wait for it to be stuck in my ignition mechanism. It is difficult already to rotate with a key fob attached to it. I cannot imagine what it would be like to rotate with just the key blade, neither do I wish to find out and before anyone recommends lubing the ignition mechanism, I have cross-checked with multiple Polos and other VW vehicles, the friction of the mechanism feels the same. I am also slightly scared to lube it.

I just wished to showcase this quick DIY for anyone who was going to pay a huge sum to VW or any local Key shop. This is totally doable at home with very basic tools (yes, you do not require all the tools mentioned in that video). Another reason was that I had not seen much content on this topic at the time of doing it and wished to contribute, hope this was helpful.

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