Replacing 98 Es300 Keys?

[Aceshigh]

I have 2 ES300's. 1st is a 1998 , 2nd is a 1997 - bought for my mother.

I recently purchased them with VERY low miles and carfax report verified.

Obviously not totally fault proof , but they were extremely clean soo.....

Anyways.....my 98 ES300 I lost my remote and my key, but I have a 2nd key

which has a bigger plastic head on it, but I have no idea which was the master.

Both started my car, and I'm not sure if they had transponders in them or not.

Both keys looked like this....for both vehicles.

I did some searches on this forum already and came up with vague info just

like Lexus dealership gave me. They will "charity" me a new ECM and I have to

pay for 2 hours labor and then buy a $150 master key and have them program it,

etc etc......plus a new 3 button remote....I'm looking at $300.

Now I talked to some other people and they told me they got these keys on Ebay

cut by a Locksmith and they work just fine in their RX300

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/LEXUS-ES300...emZ150305283990

Thoughts?? They flat out say NO TRANSPONDER chip in them and they are "master keys"

so I'm not sure what the real difference is between a master and a non-master valet key.

I'm familiar with the whole Lexus dealer solution and it's not an option for me.

[gordonw]

Your 1998 ES300 requires a key with a transponder chip in order to start the car. Both a master and valet key will have the transponder chips in them, but a master key is required to program any key, because the master key has the master "seed" code. Since you don't have a master key, the dealer has to replace the computer. It wasn't 'til a few years later that they introduced computers that would allow them to be reseeded (reprogrammed).

As for the ebay link, the seller has the no transponder chip in red to warn you that the key has no chip, so it means it wont start the car. The key is just to open your doors and trunk.