Programming A New Key

Good for you. I also found a couple key blanks and remotes on eBay and programmed them at home. Fortunately for me, I had the two originals of each allowing home programming.

As far as I know, with just one functioning key, you will have to go to the dealer to have the new key programmed and it costs much more than you'd hope for.

I do have a suggestion to lessen future grief. Since you're going to have a 2nd key programmed, go ahead now and find another one or two blanks on eBay--or have the dealer sell you another key or two. With only two keys, if one is lost, you're back to the very expensive replacement mode. But if you had 3-4 keys, the loss of one would still allow you to self-program additionally purchased replacements at minimal expense.

Craig (with a 2001 Focus that's already suffered the well-known fuel pump failure and passenger-side floor Lake Erie effect after a good rain)

You do need two keys for your cars computer to do the programming, but if you only have one you don't necessarily have to resort to a dealer. Any locksmith with the proper equipment can program one key. I found a place on the internet that had a nationwide list of locksmiths with the equipment and who agreed to program a key for a fee of $45.00, which is about half of what a dealer will charge. It worked for me. Unfortunately, I have lost the URL. You should be able to find it with a search.

To clarify- the keys themselves are not programmable. The car's computer has to be programmed to recognize the key. The key just has a chip in it that broadcasts a unique identifying code to the computer when the key is exposed to an RF signal. Nothing happens to the key itself during programming.

So, just in case anyone with a single key was thinking they could mail their original key and a new 'unprogrammed' key to a locksmith, that is not correct. The car and the programmer have to be brought together in order to make a new key work, if the owner has only one working key.

I was able to find keys and 2 new key "fobs" on e-bay for 1/4 of what the dealer wanted. My dealer questioned where I bought these from. The dealer then tried to charge me the 1 hour service charge for each key and "fob" I spoke to the shop manager and explained how it could not take four hours to program two keys, and two "fobs" If it did, I am sure the Ford Customer Service Group would like to know that. Then all of a sudden it was only a 1 hour service charge.