Why do rental car companies hand you a collection of keys for your car that are on a crimped cable ring?

It seems that every single time I’ve rented a car for work, vacation, or insurance related car repair, both ignition keys, and more often than not, the third door-only key are all on the same ring that are made not to be opened? What possible good can it do? If you lose one key, you lose them ALL. Why not give you just one instead? Or two on a split ring? It defies all logic! I suspect it is because they can charge you a ridiculous fee if you lose the set, and they have a spare at the office. I always pry the damn crimp apart and give them their keys back in separate pairs. There, I feel better.

Because rental cars rarely stay at the same location, and no location wants a bunch of keys laying around that don't belong to a car currently on their lot. If someone loses the keys, they get charged for the locksmith to make new ones anyways, so no skin off of their back.

Every once in a while you get a car with keyless start, at least then you can pop the hard key out, which usually is where the 2 sets are conjoined.
Toss the 2nd key in your EDC bag & the loose remote in your pocket.

quote:

Originally posted by jimmy123x:
Because rental cars rarely stay at the same location, and no location wants a bunch of keys laying around that don't belong to a car currently on their lot. If someone loses the keys, they get charged for the locksmith to make new ones anyways, so no skin off of their back.

Ah, but if the keys are joined via a connecting ring, like a mini-caribinar, there wouldn’t be keys at different locations. The renter would still be responsible for them, and if you lose one you aren’t stranded because you lost them all at once. The rental company still gets to screw the rent or on the replacement overcharge, and they don’t lose a vehicle from their fleet for as long as it takes to cut and program the new key.

They don't care about you losing them all or not, it's more so keeping them all together for when the car is returned to a different location, or for having all the keys when they sell the car later.

It irritates me too. I rent from National and get to pick my car. Most often my pick is based on the car with the lowest profile key ring.

If I’m going to be somewhere for a week or longer I’ll cut the key ring.

When renting, I bring an extra split ring with me. I then cut the stupid cabled mess off with my Leatherman and build my own key ring. When I return the car, I use a cable tie to re-package the mess and tell the clerk I was forced to repair their mess when their cable broke.
No problem thus far.
Just make sure you keep track of the components of the mess so you can turn it back in.
I hate the plastic tag.

I frecking hate that. I don't want to try and stuff two sets of keys in my pocket.

Last rental they had the two sets of keys connected with a simple split ring. Simple to seperate the keys. I've also cut the dam crimped metal cable before.

Sorry for the thread drift, but I have a related car rental rant.

I've noticed that, no matter what car I select when I book the rental, they never seem to have that model when I show up. I know that they have the little disclaimer "or similar model", but what the car rental company considers "similar" is usually an inferior vehicle.

I'm sure it's been this way for years, but it's really starting to irritate me.

The easiest way to separate the keys is to cut through where they are connected. Much easier than cutting through the wire.

Good rant.

I just cut the wire and return the keys on a loop of paracord. Haven't received any complaints about it yet.

I can’t believe they don’t have a main operations building that stores titles/spare keys/ etc... when you go to sell it you always have your title and spare key together and you’re ready to rock and roll. I understand that’s a lot of keys to store, but rental car companies are huge operations. I’m sure they can figure it out.