Anyone done this before? Is it easy/hard/time consuming?

Pretty easy once you have the SKC

I've read you need vag-tacho to retrieve the SKC.

Or is it retrievable using VCDS? might tap someone up nearby see if they want to help me out for some beer tokens

Correct you need VAG-Tacho, VCDS will do the coding but it cannot retrieve the SKC.

programming keys with VCDS is very simple. As others have mentioned you need the SKC which VCDS won't read. There is plenty of equipment out there that can read the SKC, Vagtacho is 1 of them, however the majority of Vagtacho's are chinese clones owned by DIY'ers. Before you let them plug it into your car you need to find out what they intend to do to sort any problems if they end up locking up the immob etc. It's not as if they're going to have liability insurance etc & if they did liability will not payout if they're using cloned equipment

I'd personally find somebody that does keys for a living. I know of somebody near me that charges £30 within 10 miles to retrieve SKC & program keys. Any further & he charges for traveling. I know he gets about the country a fair bit doing keys

VCDS could easily implement the code to do this but have publicly refused to as it could be misused, don't expect that position to change any time soon.

If you have the SKC then follow this:

http://www.ross-tech.com/vag-com/cars/key-matching-4digit.html

If you haven't got the SKC you need to obtain it, genuine VAG Tacho isn't cheap, clones are, a bit like VCDS or MPPS cables but you have no idea about the stability/quality of what you are buying. I'd always suggest buying genuine but as the cost to do so is a multiple of the cost for the dealer to do a re-code, then you are left with paying someone else who 'should' have genuine kit or going with a clone. As the price to have the work done isn't likely to be that much more than the cost of a clone and this should be a one time expense it'd make sense to get someone else to do it. My local mobile mileage correction/key coding guy charges £35 if you go to him and will normally do a fault scan first before he does anything anyway so it's not bad value. You'd pay more for a clone VCDS and VAG Tacho and then have to do the work yourself.

I've had mine done already by 'ActionMan' on SCN. Is that you?

I've had mine done already by 'ActionMan' on SCN. Is that you?

Since all his posts have been about this subject, I would suggest it is.

Since all his posts have been about this subject, I would suggest it is.

10 out of 10