Master Key Set for Mazda 626's?

Seems we just had this conversation a month or so ago. Feasible? No. Assuming 5 cut depths, at 7 locations on the key, you're talking 7^5 possible keys, minus a trivial number for "almost certainly never got used because that particular cut combination has no security to it whatsoever." Let's assume that half of all the possible cuts are rejected because they're useless. You're still looking at more than 30K keys to be cut. Assuming you find somebody to do it at "materials cost", which for the sake of discussion, I'll say is a buck each, you're looking at somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 grand *JUST FOR THE KEY BLANKS*. Now let's say that whoever you talk to wants something for their time and effort. They'll work cheap, so lets say another buck each for their time and effort in cutting them, along with the cost of the key. Whoops! Just went to 60 grand. (Never mind that "real-world", you'll probably be looking at more like 2-3 bucks per blank, plus another buck or two for each one that gets cut. It would be real easy to get into numbers with 6 digits to the left of the decimal. But we'll be nice and stick with the 2 bucks each so we've got a number to work with.)

Expensive? Definitely. You'll pay more in getting a "master set" of keys cut than you're ever even *SLIGHTLY* likely to spend by going at it 50 bucks at a time. Even if you did get such a "master set" cut, how, pray-tell, are you going to tote them around? And how do you propose to determine which key out of the ring of 30 thousand you're buried under actually fits which vehicle without going at it in pure "Is this the one? Nope. Is this the one? Nope. Is this the one..." mode? How long is it going to take you *FOR ONE CAR* if you're unlucky and you have to try every one of them before you find one that works? Let's be generous again. We'll assume you're a really quick fellow, and it only takes you one second to try a key, reject it, and move on to the next one. How long are you going to be sitting there in that seat trying keys before you find one that hits? Let's see... 30K seconds, divided by 360 to make an hour... Ahhh... OK, you aren't doing too bad. If you sit there trying one key per second, you'll only have to do that for a little over 8.5 hours non-stop. Let's cut it in half and call it 4 hours per car, then, since with the random nature of things, we don't really know how many you're going to have to try before you actually get a hit. 8 hours is "worst case scenario".

So... you've spent 60 grand on keys, and you're looking at roughly 4 hours of doing nothing but trying keys, one per second. AND YOU HAVEN'T YET MATCHED EVEN ONE CAR!

How much have you saved over paying the locksmith his fifty bucks and getting yourself on down the road a few minutes later? That's right... You've just wasted enough money (and I'll ignore the value, if any, of your time) to buy yourself a damn fine 'mobile (depending on what kind you want, maybe several of them) straight off the showroom floor. So... Was it worth it to avoid paying that locksmith his fifty bucks?

Give up on the idea, guy... Unless you manage to bid on/buy a fleet of several thousand of them, all with no keys, you're never going to get anywhere near saving any money the way you propose. For what you spend getting this "master set" made, you could go out and buy a whole used car lot full of the old beaters.

Don't get me wrong... I love my '82 626 - But reality is pretty harsh: It's just an old beater car with very little intrinsic value, and even if it was "showroom fresh", the chances of it actually being worth anything to anybody other than me or an oddball collector somewhere are somewhere between slim, none, and "you gotta be joking, right?".

Just pay the locksmith, guy... You'll be a whole lot better off in the long run.

I seem to recall a figure for some U.S. manufacturer back in the '70s (Ford?) that was around 1400 different key patterns. Things have probably expanded since then. So a locksmith or a slide hammer sound like the only practical choices.