Earlier this week I returned to my local airport from a work trip. The MB was parked in the airport garage. I used my key to open the trunk and put my luggage in. Went to use the key in the door to get in the car and -- there was no metal part to the key! I was holding the plastic bit, still attached to the key chain, but no working end. At this point, I recalled all the times I've read about broken keys on this forum, not understanding what all the fuss was about. NOW I get it. I looked all around the car, checked and double-checked my pockets... nothing. After a good 15 minutes of searching I concluded that the key must have fallen into the (now locked) truck when I put my luggage in.

Home was 45 minutes away, but my wife happened to be out and it would be at least 2 hours before she could bring me a spare key. So I called airport security who sent a police officer out to try to open the car door. After fumbling around for a bit, he concluded that he would likely damage the door seal if he tried to use his tools to open the door, so he didn't want to do it (neither did I).

So I had to wait for the wife. And sure enough, the key was on the floor of the trunk when I got it open.

Am I correct that I can get a new MB key from the dealer? (All my spares are from the hardware store.)

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05 E320 CDI - 175K miles
82 300D - 200K miles (sold)

Yes, bring proof of ownership to the dealer and have ample time to wait. Then they'll either mail it to you, or you must return to pick it up in person.

That's the good news.

The bad news is the new key will lose the plastic section within minutes of use.

A member or two here sell services to permanently attach a fob.

The pic shows what I have.

Attached Thumbnails

 

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83 SD

84 CD

The keys from the dealer are crap. Konradwax on here was selling a nice machined aluminum key head for a while, but he seems to have stopped answering PMs.

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Whoever said there's nothing more expensive than a cheap Mercedes never had a cheap Jaguar.

83 300D Turbo with manual conversion, early W126 vented front rotors and H4 headlights 400,xxx miles
08 Suzuki GSX-R600 M4 Slip-on 22,xxx miles
88 Jaguar XJS V12 94,xxx miles. Work in progress.