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Methodology

Data accuracy & sourcing methodology.

What's verified, what's illustrative, and what we're actively fixing — field by field, with the date we last audited it.

Last accuracy audit: 2026-07-06

On 2026-07-06 an internal audit cross-checked a sample of our model-year coverage against NHTSA vPIC's GetModelsForMakeYear endpoint and found that our per-model year ranges were generated as a uniform 2002–2024 span for every model, rather than each model's actual production run. That means some vehicle-year pages on this site describe model years that were never sold in North America (confirmed examples: a 2002 Kia Telluride page — the Telluride didn't exist before 2020 — and a 2005 Ford Maverick page — the modern Maverick launched for 2022). The interim fix live now is the disclosure paragraph at the bottom of every vehicle page, reproduced below. The permanent fix — regenerating coverage per model directly from vPIC — is planned but not yet shipped; see the status note at the bottom of this page.

What's independently verifiable today

FieldSourceConfidence
Make & model namesNHTSA vPIC public APIHigh — names are real
Model-year coverage (which years exist per model)Uniform 2002–2024 placeholder, not yet validated per modelLow — known issue, see above
Transponder chip family & frequencyManufacturer datasheets (NXP, Texas Instruments, EM Microelectronic) and the OBD2 community immobilizer databaseModerate–High, generation-level accuracy
FCC ID(s)FCC public radio equipment authorization databaseModerate — sourced but not verified per exact trim/VIN
OEM part numbersDocumented parts-catalog prefix conventions per manufacturerLow — suffixes/full numbers are illustrative, confirm at a dealer parts counter before ordering
Aftermarket programmer compatibilityPublished vehicle-coverage lists from Autel, Xhorse, AutoProPAD, Topdon, Smart Pro, AbritesModerate–High
Pricing rangesAggregated from public retail and dealer-parts listingsDirectional — expect regional variance

Why this matters more here than on a typical reference site

Getting a key fob wrong is expensive: a mis-ordered OEM part or a wrong-generation aftermarket fob is a $30–$140 mistake that still won't start the car. Most sites in this space don't disclose sourcing at all, which makes their tables look more authoritative than they are. We'd rather tell you exactly which fields are dealer-counter-safe today and which are directional, than let a clean-looking table imply certainty we don't have.

Status: fixing the coverage issue

The planned fix replaces the uniform 2002–2024 placeholder with real per-model year ranges pulled directly from vPIC's GetModelsForMakeYear endpoint (one call per make/year — roughly 322 calls across our 14-manufacturer directory), then rebuilds the model selector, sitemap, and year tags to match. This is a multi-hour data-engineering pass, tracked internally; it has not shipped yet. Until it does, treat any single vehicle-year page's existence as "this make/model may have used this fob hardware around this year" rather than "this exact model year was definitely sold."

Report an error

Found a wrong part number, FCC ID, or a model year that clearly didn't exist? Send us a correction — corrections are the fastest way any single page gets fixed ahead of the full coverage rebuild.