Some Renault chips are long and narrow, I imagine these might be fragile, but most are tiny square housings and clip into the side of the key. The shop import Chinese chips for many cars and they are steadily coming down in price. The early ones were $45 each, now it is 10 for $30. There is a tremendous markup on these chips. A Mercedes Benz dealer might charge R1800 (£150) for a blank chip which the shop buys for $3 and sells for R300 (£20). Of course you have to encode it and there are about 10 different machines with dozens of adaptors. Very little, if any standardisation. Renault again are the worst, 10 Renaults might have 4 different plugs. Only the French could do that.
