Yes you can manually unlock the doors but to start the car you have to have the programmed transponder. What I'm suggesting is to remove the transponder from a good working key and attaching inside the receiver ring and being able to cut normal, regular keys and being able to start the car. When you take apart the good key you can move the lock/unlock circuit board into a new shell and use that key to still be able to use your lock buttons, still steady the car because the chip attached to the ring will still read and being able to use "regular" non chipped keys to also work. With new keys being $675 this seems a good work around. Definitely cheaper than trying to break the code on the electronics. Doing it this way you would have $8 in the new shell and about $8 in two regular blanks for a total of 3 working keys.