Automotive

A modern car key is two devices pretending to be one. There is the mechanical half — a blade cut to your vehicle's key code — and the electronic half: a transponder or proximity credential the car interrogates every time you try to start it. They fail separately, they are replaced separately, and most of the confusion (and most of the overcharging) in automotive locksmithing comes from blurring the two. Every service on this page is honest about which half it is fixing. The work happens at the vehicle. The cutting machine, the programming equipment and the diagnostic gear travel to wherever the car is sitting — a parking lot, the roadside, your driveway — which is the difference between fixing the problem where it happened and paying to tow a car that will not start to a dealership that books it in for next week. All-keys-lost included: a working key can be originated from the vehicle's own data with nothing left to copy. Two policies apply to everything here. Proof of ownership is checked before any key is made or any vehicle opened — the same rule that stops someone else having a key made to your car. And when a key is lost rather than worn out, we recommend erasing it from the immobiliser in the same visit, so whoever finds it holds a piece of plastic instead of a way to start your vehicle.