After 3 months of leg work and research I finally got a working back up key made... 2 of them in fact! My first call to my nearest dealer resulted in a quote of $415 to have a new cut key shipped from England (6 weeks) and $170 in labor to program it (3 weeks to get an appointment once the key arrives). Um..no. Realizing that this was going to be a chore I ordered 2 X $30 replacement keys from Amazon just to be sure I never have to do this again! Next our local locksmith managed to blow out the OBDII fuse trying to program the keys and finally gave up in despair. I limped home from that encounter with the DIL on and "Limited Performance" engaged. After more research I learned that Jaguar Land Rover in Paramus NJ would cut the keys for $30 each and program them both for $80. The service guy was pleasant and helpful and despite expressing his doubts about the aftermarket keys he got it done. So in total I spent $200 for 2 keys. (Yes, the Amazon keys are slightly crappier than the original but you really have to look)
They even gave the old girl a quick wash before pulling her back around into the indoor Mountain Ski Chalet replica service staging area. This design comes complete with cobble stone pavement that makes your car feel like it's falling to pieces. (who thought this was a good idea?) There were about 8 Land Rovers waiting in various levels of gargantuan ugliness and all of them were either white, black or grey. In wafts my Jaguar Racing Green XJ gleaming under the twinkly led lights and in spite of being the cheapest and oldest vehicle in the place she completely took over. As they were going over the results of my complementary vehicle inspection ($4300 worth of unnecessary work) they told me with grave concern that I only had 2 mm of brake pad left in the back. I told them that was extremely unlikely since those pads have 3000 miles on them. As I was pulling out it occurred to me what the problem was. The young service tech who does the inspections measured the Parking Brake pads which are mounted in a separate electric caliper on the Super V8s with Brembos. They're only a couple of mm thick new.

I'm happy to have another box on my check list marked off.

Jeff

 

Refurbished blank original Jaguar keys, are available on line, or were when i needed mine.
Your key portion is the most important part now.
It will go into any stock key, so any good Jag key can work with your metal key installed in it.
There is a small pin holding it in, look it's a simple design.