My second post. My sister inherited a 2005 Base manual shift CF after her husband died. He owned it less than two years. I am the designated maintainer and occasional driver on her behalf. In his personal effects, we found one fully working key (both mechanical cut and electrical). Its only issue is the plastic curved hoop at top is broken. We also found two original type complete keys he ordered, from where we don't know. Those two have obviously wrong cut (don't match each other either), don't fit lock or ignition and after battery replacement they don't remotely do anything either. And since I can't turn the spares in the ignition I can't self program them either.

I am confused in that the spares he ordered were already cut.
Have you a guess on what he may have intended to do to make these two spares useful ?
I would like to have at least one more fully function key.
Can either the MSS or NeedsWings provide correct mechanical cut along with the programming ?
If this is a FAQ, forgive me.

 

As a guess, I would assume either he wanted the case, or the fob electronics or both. New mechanical cut keys aren't an issue - I think the size is H64, and a locksmith can cut them easy enough from an old one. The security feature is an RFID chip located in the FOB and activated by the antenna surrounding the ignition. The FOB electronics are for opening and closing the doors - any crossfire FOB can be programmed to your car if you have a good working key with the right security coded RFID chip in the ignition. The tricky part is getting the RFID chip programmed for your car - MSS and/or NeedsWings are good at that (and also the mechanical cut). I'm not sure why the crossfire SKREEM has 6 program slots for keys since cloned RFID chips seem to work okay.
Good Luck, and keep us updated on how things go.
-Jerry

 

Sounds like he bought the other keys, perhaps, for their housings. That', or he did not understand what was required to obtain a working key and bought them from one of these "locksmiths" that claim they can make keys for our cars but really cant.

Go to Needswings or the MSS to get what you want: One more working key.
It's as simple as that.

 

Here are the links for both companies:
Needswings key service
Mercedes Swap Shop (MSS) key service

The service might be pricey, but you will only have to do this once, and it will be worth it. Both companies are excellent at what they do.