Early Toyota and Lexus vehicles operated a bit different from the later systems do. There are lots of differences but the main one you will actually care about is that if you lose your last key to one of these vehicles the cost for new keys seems really high. Why is that? It’s because Toyota and Lexus (same company) in their infinite wisdom thought it would be a good idea to not give anyone access to the ECU (the part in the car that stores the chip key data) through the standard diagnostic port. That means you can’t plug-in a diagnostic machine and simply add in keys like we can on the later models.
This leaves you with 3 options.
- Sell the car (Yeah right!)
- Tow it to a dealer and pay to have the ECU replaced, synched to the car, and then to program in the brand new keys they sell. Make sure you are sitting down when you hear the price of that!
- Call us. We can re-flash your current ECU and add in two keys for a fraction of the cost of a brand new part, labor to install and high programming fees.
Reflashing means that we write over the current files in the ECU and convert it back to its virgin unused state. After it’s been overwritten, we can add in new keys! Here is the list of vehicles that need to be reflashed if all keys are lost.
Lexus
1998 – 2001 ES300
1998 – 2001 GS300
1998 – 2000 GS400
2001 IS300
1997 – 2000 LS400
1998 – 2000 LX470
1999 – 2003 RX300
1998 – 2000 SC300
1998 – 2000 SC400
Toyota
1998 – 2000 4-Runner
1998 – 2004 Avalon
1998 – 2001 Camry
2010 FJ Cruiser
2001 – 2003 Highlander
1998 – 2000 Landcruiser
2000 – 2005 MR2
2000 – 2003 Prius (We do not pull this ECU as it requires dropping your steering column)
2001 – 2003 RAV4
2003 – 2007 Sequoia
1999 – 2003 Sienna
1998 – 2006 Solara