Most Vancouver drivers carry two fobs on one ring: one for the car, one for the lobby and the parkade gate. We handle the car one. We bring the correct coin cell to wherever the vehicle is sitting, fit it without cracking the case, and put the pairing back if the fob forgets the car while the power is off.
A fob that has lost its range is almost never a broken fob. It is a flat lithium cell, and it is a short job at the kerb, in a driveway, or on a parking pad off the lane. We stock the sizes that actually turn up, fit the right one, and prove the fob against the vehicle before we pack up.
In a tower stall you never find out your fob is failing. You walk up to the car, press from half a metre away, and a cell with a fortnight left in it behaves perfectly. The day it announces itself is the day you street-park: you press from the sidewalk on Comox, nothing happens, and you stand there wondering what changed overnight. Nothing did, except the distance. Range is the first thing a coin cell gives up and the last thing anybody notices.
Worth settling before anything else, because in Vancouver the two travel on the same keyring. The car fob is ours. It holds a coin cell, it has buttons on it, and when the cell fades the range shrinks. The lobby and parkade credential is the strata's. It is registered to the building, issued by the strata or by whoever runs its access system, and no locksmith can program, copy or replace one. It usually has nothing in it to go flat either, since the common lobby tag is passive and draws its power from the reader you hold it against. So if the car answers and the front door does not, the call you want is to your strata manager. The other way round is a coin cell, and we can be at the car today.
The number stamped on a coin cell is a measurement, not a brand, and the sizes sit close enough together that the wrong one will physically go in. A CR2025 drops into a CR2032 holder and works, for a while. It is the same width but thinner, so it holds less charge and the clip presses on it with less force. A month on, the fob is doing the short-range thing again, and by then it reads like a fob fault rather than a cell that was never the right one. That is the single most common reason we get called to a fob somebody has already put a battery in. We fit what the fob was built for, and if you give us the year, make and model on the phone, the right cell is on the truck before we set off.
| Job | Typical range |
|---|---|
| One fob, cell supplied and fitted | $10–$25 |
| Both household fobs done at the same stop | $18–$40 |
| Proximity / push-to-start fob | $15–$35 |
| Cell plus contact clean and re-tension | $20–$45 |
| Cell plus re-sync to the vehicle | $40–$95 |
| Fob still dead on a fresh cell (diagnosis) | Quoted at the car |
The cell is the cheap part of this and always has been. What you are paying for is that it happens where the car already is, in a case that still shuts properly afterwards, with the fob proved against the vehicle before anyone drives off. A battery on its own carries a small minimum call-out for that reason, so it is worth asking what else you want done while the van is there: a spare blade cut, a second fob brought back to life, a mechanical key that lives in the glovebox. Whatever the total is, it gets agreed on the phone and it does not move when we arrive.
Year, make and model decides the cell. Where the car is decides everything else: a kerbside spot is straightforward, a gated underground needs a plan agreed first, and a proximity fob on a European car is the sort we flag for a possible re-sync before we quote you.
We cannot badge ourselves into a secured parkade, so either you meet the tech down at the stall or you leave word with the concierge that a locksmith is coming to your vehicle. There is a third option people forget: a flat fob still starts a push-to-start car off the backup coil, so you can usually bring it up and meet us at the kerb.
The case comes apart at the seam, the contacts get cleaned, the new cell seats, and every button gets pressed against the car. If the pairing dropped while the power was out, the fob gets re-enrolled on the spot rather than becoming a dealership appointment for what is a short procedure.
On most cars the swap is uneventful and the buttons work the instant the cell seats. A minority of systems, mostly older smart keys and a few European platforms, treat a long gap without power as a reason to forget the car they belong to. The symptom is specific: doors still open, engine will not run. That is an unwelcome thing to discover four levels under a tower with the gate arm already behind you. The fix is a re-enrolment with a programming tool, and that tool travels in the van, so the fob leaves paired rather than leaving you an appointment.
On a common flip key it is a fair job: find the seam, ease it apart, match the cell exactly, click it shut. The calls we get are the ones that come after that. A shell cracked because the pry went in at the wrong point. A contact clip flattened, so the new cell only connects when the fob is squeezed. A sealed proximity key that was glued or welded at the factory and has now been persuaded open, with the gasket sitting proud of its groove. That last one is the expensive mistake in this climate, because a fob that no longer seals spends a damp Vancouver winter taking on water a little at a time, and water is what actually kills fobs. A replacement proximity fob costs many times a call-out.
Three kinds of address account for most of these calls, and they each fail for a different reason. Street-parked cars in the West End, along Comox, Pendrell and Bute, where you press from the building door and find out precisely how much range has gone. The parking structures at Langara College on West 49th, where a car sits through a full block of classes and its owner comes back at dusk to a fob that quietly gave up somewhere in the middle of the afternoon. And the parking pads off the lanes in East Vancouver, where the car lives behind the house and the first press of the day happens from the back steps, which is further than anyone thinks. We come to all three, and to the Dunbar or Kerrisdale driveway that never had a problem with any of this until last Tuesday.
Downtown and Yaletown are the awkward ones, and only because of the doors between us and your car rather than anything about the job. Getting into a secured underground is yours or the building's to arrange, not something that can be solved from the ramp. Say on the phone that the car is behind a gate and the meeting point gets settled while we book: the stall, the lobby, or a loading zone with the car brought up to it. The building's access panel and its credentials stay the strata's business throughout. We are there for the fob with the coin cell in it, nothing else.
A flat coin cell is the cheapest thing that can go wrong with a car key. If a fresh cell does not wake the car up, the fault is one of the services below instead.
Pick-, drill- and bump-resistant cylinders with keys that can’t be copied at the hardware store. Cut, pinned and registered in-shop.
1/2" steel door, digital keypad, fitted and bolted on site.
Car keys are priced by vehicle. Pick what you need and we’ll collect your make, model & year to text you an exact quote.