A lockout ends with you driving away. An ignition fault does not, so the work has to come to wherever the car gave up: a paid lot off Broadway, the retail parking on West 41st in Kerrisdale, a stall two levels under a strata tower. We bring the cylinder tools, the blanks and the programmer to that spot and free, rekey or replace the ignition at the column.
Three faults account for almost every ignition call: a steering lock loaded against the cylinder, a blade worn past the point where it lifts the tumblers cleanly, and a cylinder whose tumblers are worn themselves. The first costs you nothing. The second costs you a key. Only the third is a cylinder job, and we settle which one you have before anyone quotes you for parts.
The truck carries cylinder-service tools, replacement cylinders for the common makes, a blade-cutting machine and the programmer for chipped keys, so an ignition job that turns into a key job does not become a second appointment. What the make tells us is how the cylinder is built. On a lot of Japanese and domestic cars it comes apart in the housing, the wafers can be cleaned and re-keyed, and the antenna ring for the immobiliser lifts off and goes back on the replacement. On a growing number of European ones the cylinder is a coded assembly that has to be matched to the car rather than simply swapped, which is a different part, a different price and occasionally a dealer job. We would rather establish that while you are still on the phone.
Start with the possibility that costs nothing. Rest a hand on the steering wheel and try to rock it. If it has no play at all, the steering lock is under load and the cylinder cannot turn against it: keep light pressure on the key and work the wheel firmly left and right until it lets go. Nothing is broken in that case. If the wheel rocks freely and the key still refuses, try a spare. A spare that turns tells you the blade on your everyday key is worn rather than the cylinder, and a fresh cut from the code fixes it. A spare that also refuses, or a key that only goes in part way, points at debris in the keyway or tumblers worn past the point of lifting. Stop there. Forcing a key that will not turn is how a blade ends up snapped off inside the cylinder, which turns a service call into an extraction.
The moment the key turns, the cylinder has done its job and the fault sits downstream of it. Three candidates: the ignition switch behind the cylinder, which is electrical and the first thing we test; a transponder the immobiliser no longer accepts, which is transponder key programming rather than lock work; or a flat cell in a push-to-start fob. Most cars built after 2000 carry a chip, which is why a blade cut at a hardware counter will turn the ignition and leave you sitting there. We arrive with the mechanical side and the programming side on the same truck, which is what lets one visit close the job.
| Ignition service | Typical range |
|---|---|
| Stuck or jammed ignition, serviced and freed | $90–$180 |
| Ignition rekeyed to your existing key | $120–$240 |
| Worn cylinder replaced (parts and labour) | $180–$350 |
| Cylinder replaced, new key cut and programmed | $240–$480 |
| Ignition switch diagnosis (electrical, behind the cylinder) | $110–$260 |
| Broken blade extracted from the ignition | $75–$140 |
Every figure covers parts, labour and any programming. Coded cylinders and proprietary immobilisers on European cars sit at the top of each band, and a small number of models can only be done by their dealer, which is something we say on the phone rather than after we arrive. Quote us the year, make and model down the line and the range you are given is the one that still holds when the truck pulls up.
A blade usually snaps at the shoulder, leaving the cut portion sitting in the keyway with the wafers still holding it. Do not pick at it with pliers or glue, and do not push the spare in on top of it, because both tend to drive the fragment deeper and score the wafers on the way. We draw it out with an extractor, then work out whether the break came from a worn blade or a binding cylinder, and cut you a fresh key from the code so the same thing is not waiting to happen again next month. Where the cylinder caused it, the extraction and the repair are one visit.
Say which one it is: no turn at all, turns but does not start, or a broken blade. Add the year, make and model. That gets you a firm range on the call and tells us what to load.
Ignition work keeps the van beside you for a while, so it matters whether that is a driveway, a paid lot, or a stall wedged against a parkade wall. Most Vancouver runs land in a 20-30 minute window.
The cylinder gets freed, serviced or swapped, a key is cut and paired if the job calls for one, and every switch position plus a restart is checked before you take the car back.
Everything else in this trade is portable. An ignition is not, because the vehicle it is bolted into has stopped being a vehicle, and it will not be shuffled along to a friendlier stall. The technician needs to sit in the driver's seat with the door open and the column shroud off for a real stretch, which means the van comes alongside rather than pausing on the hazards for two minutes. That makes the parking spot part of the job description. Hamilton and Mainland in Yaletown are genuinely tight through business hours. Gastown's cobblestone one-ways and narrow through-lanes cost a few minutes at the end of the run whatever the map promised. Underground, a stall with a column on one side and a wall on the other is a harder afternoon than the bay number suggests, so say which one you are in. And where the ramp is gated, the building has to send someone down with us, because that gate is not ours to open.
The same fault produces three quite different afternoons depending on where the car is standing. In Fairview it is usually one of the paid lots off Broadway, left there for an appointment in the medical offices around VGH or a clinic further along West Broadway, and the owner comes back to a key that turns against nothing. In Kerrisdale it is the retail parking around the village strip at West 41st and West Boulevard, where a fifteen-minute errand has quietly become the rest of the day. In Shaughnessy the car is rarely at the curb at all: it is partway up a long driveway, which is a comfortable place to work and a difficult one to find after dark, so tell us which entrance you are standing at and put the outside light on. Not one of the three needs a flatbed. All three need somebody at the column with the right cylinder in hand.
There is no shop for you to drive to, which is the only arrangement that makes sense for a fault that takes the driving away. Most runs across the city land in the 20-30 minute window, and the drive itself is rarely what costs the time. The last two hundred metres usually is: the ramp down to P3, a village strip with every spot taken, a house number sitting behind a hedge. So the useful thing to hand us on the call is a level and a stall, or a cross street and the colour of the car, rather than the address on the registration, which is frequently nowhere near where the car actually stopped.
An ignition fault rarely turns up alone. Behind it there is usually a blade worn thin, a chip the car has stopped reading, or a fob that quit a fortnight earlier and nobody mentioned.
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.