Quote:
Originally Posted by maria41
What are the odds that our ignition keys would match?
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I don't know about the current crop of BMWs, but when I was a bike mechanic in the early eighties in Germany Honda was selling bikes with keys with 4-digit numbers. That makes 10000 combinations max. At that time Neiman had a monopoly in Germany on ignitions switches: all Hondas sold in Germany had Neiman locks fitted. In the beginning this was the infamous and useless steering lock, later they replaced the combo ignition/steering lock with a Neiman lock that had longer key numbers and more complicated looking keys with six-digit numbers. All other locks on Hondas were standard issue, i.e. you had two keys for each bike where the rest of the world had one.
One day I had two VF750s to service and found to my consternation that the Honda keys to open the seat, etc. were unique, but the Neiman keys were identical and could be used on either bike. So much for the added security in Germany.
I have read other stories of people accidentally getting into somebody else's car that looked the same, but their key would open it.
Seems strange with key codes that long, but I get the impression that not all 100000 or million numbers are actually used.
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