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The way I look at it is YOU lost your key....not your mom. Lucky for you she did have a spare stashed away.....In no way does she have to give you that key....she's probably trying to teach you some responsibility......Why didn't you get yourself a spare cut when YOU had the chance......As long as your car is on her property and you are a minor in her care she can keep that key, and no matter how pissed you get, it won't do no good.
Calling the police is a funny idea. She can tell them she lost her key too - and there will be nothing they (or you) can do about it.
But - go ahead and call on your mom. Bring up her 'criminal past' - frankly OP, I doubt they'll show up - dispatch will explain that until/unless she does something to the car, they can't do anything. Of course, since the car is most likely parked on her property, or in front of it, she can probably call and have it towed/impounded if you refuse to move it within a certain amount of time - make sure the cops let her know what that time frame is (by calling them and telling them the situation, you'll be giving her a legal date from which to start counting down).
I'm guessing she told this kid exactly why she won't give him the key - and from his posts, possibly it has something to do with his lies, not to mention his irresponsiblity. Who gets a car and only has ONE key?
1. All automobiles come from the factory with two keys.
2. If the car is legally yours, you can go to the dealer and have a new key made. The only hard part is actually getting to the dealer. For a Milan, it's an electronic key, and so you can't just get one at the local key shop. A new key will cost you a couple hundred bucks because it needs to be programmed. Or you can get an unprogrammed one and check the internet to learn how to program it yourself (I had to do that with my car when my key flipped out of my pocket while snow plowing the driveway and into the plow blades). You'd save around $100 but you still have to pay over $100 for the key itself.
3. Purehuman has a point. Don't be ticked off at your mother for your failure to keep your own key safe. You'd be in the exact same situation you're in now, if your mother didn't have a spare. The fact that you're holding her responsible for your failure speaks volumes about your maturity and she might be right to keep you from driving at this point.
My guess is that there is more to this story than you are telling us. I am not hearing the ring of truth in your accounting of everyone's actions. The fact that you used your grandmother's money to buy the car and kept it a secret from your mother says that neither relationship is "normal." If you had bought this car from a dealership, you would have gotten both keys free and clear. So, you're going to learn several lessons from this experience.
Lesson #1: Don't make financial arrangements with family unless you don't mind the strings that come with them.
Next, while if the actions were as you described them (which I don't believe), your mother would be in the wrong for withholding the key, some of the others have a point that you brought this on yourself by losing the key in the first place. This has nothing to do with you being young. It has nothing to do with how long you've driven the car without losing the key. It has to do with the fact that you misplaced your key and didn't make a spare that you hung onto. Whether that happens when you're an adult or happens when you're a minor, you'll still have to: pay a locksmith to get back into the car, pay for a ride to the dealership, pay to have a new key made. So:
Lesson #2: Always have a spare key made and keep it somewhere safe.
Finally, yes you can call the police and see if they'll do anything. But as someone else pointed out, your mother can simply say she lost her key as well. Or she can say you're lying. The smarter tactic might be to fix things with your mother, whatever that issue you're not telling us is.
my grandma insures the car with me as a secondary. and borrows my car somtimes., and my mother signed the title over to me in April because me and my grandma couldn't keep up with cost. she didnt want an uninsured car under her name.
Wait - is the car insured with you and your grandma or has it lapsed because you couldn't keep up the payments and that's why your Mom signed over the title?
I don't blame your Mom for not wanting an uninsured car in her name and I don't blame her for not wanting her son driving around in one.
If you can't afford to insure, you can't afford to drive!
I don't understand what lesson is learned by not giving someone his spare key. "Too bad, you should have made a spare and kept it safe!" Well, duh ... that's why YOU have it. If someone gives you something for safekeeping, you're supposed to give it back upon request.
There could be a whole lot more going on (and it seems like there is), but not giving a spare key back to its owner is petty and spiteful. I don't really see any way around that.
But as for what you can do about it, OP, I don't know. It sounds like it's going to cost you some money with a locksmith.
1. All automobiles come from the factory with two keys.
2. If the car is legally yours, you can go to the dealer and have a new key made. The only hard part is actually getting to the dealer. For a Milan, it's an electronic key, and so you can't just get one at the local key shop. A new key will cost you a couple hundred bucks because it needs to be programmed. Or you can get an unprogrammed one and check the internet to learn how to program it yourself (I had to do that with my car when my key flipped out of my pocket while snow plowing the driveway and into the plow blades). You'd save around $100 but you still have to pay over $100 for the key itself.
3. Purehuman has a point. Don't be ticked off at your mother for your failure to keep your own key safe. You'd be in the exact same situation you're in now, if your mother didn't have a spare. The fact that you're holding her responsible for your failure speaks volumes about your maturity and she might be right to keep you from driving at this point.
Wait - is the car insured with you and your grandma or has it lapsed because you couldn't keep up the payments and that's why your Mom signed over the title?
I don't blame your Mom for not wanting an uninsured car in her name and I don't blame her for not wanting her son driving around in one.
If you can't afford to insure, you can't afford to drive!
You know what - I had to re-read it a few times, but I think you might be right. I sounds like the car is uninsured. Insurance under grandma, grandma can't afford the costs.
If that is the case, I'd keep the key too.
Still say there is way more going on here that the OP would rather us not know in order to get sympathy for his side.
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