Two road crossings reach the North Shore, the Lions Gate and the Ironworkers Memorial, and a van queued for either one is no use to a car that will not open. Technicians here are already on the North Shore rather than sent over from the Vancouver side, so nobody is waiting on a van to cross. West Vancouver is reached on the same side of the water, by Marine Drive or the Taylor Way interchange, and the minutes that get added out there come from the run west to Caulfeild and Horseshoe Bay, not from a bridge.
Six different jobs arrive on one phone number. Most of what this page does is help you work out which one you have before a van is loaded for it.
Automotive locksmithing is not one service. Opening a locked door, drawing a snapped blade out of a barrel, rebuilding a tired ignition, waking a flat fob, coding a chip and building a key set from nothing want different tools and very different amounts of time. Guessing wrong is dearer here than it would be on a grid. Dollarton Highway runs out at Deep Cove and the Upper Levels runs out at Horseshoe Bay, so a van that turns up without the right blank cannot circle the block for another one, it drives the whole way back out. The guess is made on the phone instead, before anything is packed, and if the honest answer is that your car needs a dealer you hear that first rather than last.
Whichever of them it turns out to be, the work finishes at the vehicle. The vans carry a key-cutting machine, blank stock and the programming gear, so a car that will not start at the top of a parkway gets fixed where it stands instead of being dragged back down to a workshop that would only do the same thing.
If two of those describe your car, say both when you ring. A worn blade with a failing chip inside it and a barrel on its way out tend to arrive together, and the visit gets planned around whichever turns out to be true.
What a job costs turns on the make, the key type, and whether anything has to be programmed, so a range goes to you on the phone before a van leaves.
| Service | Typical range |
|---|---|
| Car lockout (standard door entry) | $95–$160 |
| Car lockout (push-to-start / complex) | $100–$160 |
| Transponder key cut & program | $150–$280 |
| Smart / proximity fob programming | $180–$350 |
| Broken key extraction (lock or ignition) | $90–$160 |
| Ignition cylinder replacement | $180–$320 |
| All-keys-lost (transponder) | $220–$400 |
| Duplicate key (non-transponder) | $45–$80 |
Parts and programming time are inside those figures, and the standard car lockout figure is for the lockout itself, with the total for your address confirmed on the call before a van is sent. A Deep Cove driveway carries no area surcharge over a Lonsdale Avenue kerb, and a hillside address carries none either. One thing can add to a job, and it is the hour rather than the address: work booked between midnight and 6 am. Where it does, the amount sits inside the range you are read at the start, so the total you settle is the total you agreed to.
Year, make, model and trim, then one more answer: do you still hold a key the car accepts? That single question moves a job between the two ends of the table above, and it decides what the technician packs.
The window depends on where the nearest van is and where the car sits, and you are given it for your address before the drive starts. Nothing here asks you to move the car or organise a tow.
The door comes open, the broken blade comes out, or a new key is cut and enrolled at the kerb. The technician confirms the lock works or the engine starts with you before leaving. Cash, debit or card, settled at the vehicle.
The limits are worth hearing before anyone drives out. A few older and specialised European vehicles need dealer tokens that no independent can issue, and a small number of high-end platforms run proprietary programming that only the manufacturer's own equipment will complete. A genuinely rare or exotic car can be one of those. None of it should be discovered on your driveway, which is why the year, make, model and trim get taken at the start of the call. At the opposite end there is nothing to program at all: an older car with no chip in the key takes a mechanical cut and little else, and those are among the shortest visits we make. Between the two sits most of what is parked on these streets. Toyota, Honda, Subaru, Ford and Hyundai are cut and coded from the van as routine, and most other common makes go the same way. European cars are the ones worth naming early, because some BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Audi models want a dealer-level programmer, and you are told on the phone which side of that line yours falls on.
West of the Capilano River the automotive calls follow the water. Whytecliff Park, Ambleside Beach and the trailhead pull-offs strung along Marine Drive all produce the same shape of job: a car left standing for a couple of hours and a key that went into a jacket pocket and came out somewhere else entirely. Sewell's Marina at Horseshoe Bay belongs on the same list, and keys get cut and paired in its lot the way they are anywhere else. Finishing at the kerb counts for more out there than it would elsewhere, because past the village cores every drive is a long one, whether the van comes back along Marine Drive or down the Upper Levels.
Nothing east of the Seymour River is laid out as a grid. The residential streets fan out toward Indian Arm off two arteries, Mount Seymour Parkway and Dollarton Highway, and which of the two you came in on is the single most useful thing you can tell a dispatcher out there. The lots that generate the work are ordinary rather than scenic: the Maplewood Farm parking, the small industrial units around Maplewood Flats, the Seymour Golf and Country Club, and further east the quiet cul-de-sacs climbing toward Myrtle Park. Two addresses can sit close together on a map and have nothing in common on the way in, so the route is settled with you rather than assumed.
One pattern here is purely a commuter one. The SeaBus terminal at the foot of Lonsdale makes that end of the city about as transit-accessible as the North Shore gets, and the price of it is a steady trickle of people who manage to shut the bags and the keys in together while running for the last boat. The trucks run on road, so help arrives the long way round. It does arrive to the car, though, rather than asking the car to come to it.
Yes. The lock cylinder is decoded mechanically, or the key code is read out of the car's BCM or ECU, and a blade is cut and written to the immobiliser from nothing. The keys you lost stop working at the same moment, so a found key is no use to whoever found it. It sits at the top of the range in the table above and it saves a tow.
Three things usually explain that: a transponder chip failing inside a worn physical key, an ignition cylinder on its way out, or an immobiliser fault. All three get told apart at the vehicle. If it turns out to be an electrical fault outside what a locksmith should be touching, you are told plainly rather than charged to keep looking.
That is what the tools are for. The door is eased open with an air wedge and a long-reach rod, so nothing is prised and nothing is improvised. Newer cars with frameless windows and soft seals take a slightly different approach. On the rare vehicle where no method is genuinely risk-free, we lay out the options first and let you decide.
A single key on a common make runs 20–45 minutes from arrival. All-keys-lost work that needs a PIN pulled from the ECU runs 45–90, because the vehicle has to accept an entirely new key and some platforms impose a security delay before it will. The estimate you are given on the phone is built from the year, make and model, so it narrows as soon as we have them.
Yes, or somebody you send in your place. No key gets cut until the car is shown to be yours, which means registration or insurance carrying the same name as your photo ID. Being there also shortens the end of the drive, because the technician calls from the road and one ring settles where you are.
Usually. The dealer route normally means waiting for the blank to be ordered in and a service slot to open, and towing the car in if it will not start. On this side of the water that tow is the part that hurts. The price is typically the same or lower, though not always, and you get the number on the phone before you commit either way.
A far corner carries no area surcharge and a hillside address carries no premium, and the total for your address is confirmed on the call. Nights are the half that can move, and someone answers at any hour either way. Where an overnight job carries a small amount it sits inside the range you are quoted before a technician sets off. The figure at the end of the visit is the figure from the start of the call.
Trailhead lots, strata parkades and one ferry terminal, and the approach to each is what decides the window. Tap yours for the local detail.
Deeper detail on lockouts, transponder programming, fobs, batteries and ignition work.
House and business lock work runs off the same dispatch and the same licensed technicians.