An ignition fault is not a lockout. The door opens perfectly well; the car simply will not go anywhere, so the repair has to travel to the vehicle instead of the vehicle travelling to the repair. We work out which of the four usual culprits you actually have, then repair, rekey or replace the ignition on the same visit.
Four things account for nearly every ignition fault: debris packed into the keyway, a key worn down flat, a cylinder worn out of tolerance, or a steering lock sitting under load. Three of those four are a service call rather than a parts job, which is why the first move is a diagnosis at the kerb and not a tow.
The van that comes to you carries cylinder-servicing tools, replacement cylinders, key blanks, a cutting machine and the programming gear, because on anything built after roughly 1995–1998 the mechanical half of the job is only half the job. Before that cutoff a cylinder swap is purely mechanical and a plain cut key finishes it. After it the car has an immobiliser, so a new cylinder usually means a new key that has to be taught to the vehicle as well as cut to the lock. That is why the dispatcher asks for the year, make and model on the phone.
The most useful diagnostic costs nothing and you can run it before we arrive. Try the spare. If the spare turns and your daily key does not, the cylinder is fine and the key has simply worn down against it over years of use, which is a recut rather than a cylinder job. If both keys behave identically, the wafers inside the cylinder are the suspect. If neither key will even go in cleanly, it is usually debris packed into the keyway or a bent blade rather than wear anywhere. Knowing which of those three you have before we roll changes what gets loaded on the truck.
That is a different fault, and usually not the lock at all. A key that rotates freely through every position has already done the cylinder's job, so the problem sits behind it: the ignition switch, an immobiliser that no longer recognises the transponder in the key, or a flat fob battery on a push-to-start car. We diagnose all three at the vehicle and can finish the transponder side on the spot. The electrical side has a limit and we would rather name it than bill you twice to find it. If the fault runs back into the switch wiring or the harness, that is auto-electrical work, and we say so plainly instead of carrying on guessing at your expense.
The single most common version of "my key will not turn" is not a fault at all. Park on a real grade with the front wheels resting against the curb, and the weight of the car leans into the steering column until the lock pin jams hard against the cylinder it is meant to release. This coastline supplies that grade almost everywhere: Lonsdale Avenue climbing from the Quay up the escarpment, Jones Avenue and Grand Boulevard and St. Andrews Avenue above 21st Street, Larson Road and Balfour Avenue, Capilano Road running north off Marine Drive, the switchbacks off Chartwell Drive once you are past Taylor Way, and Copper Drive and the side streets off Nelson Avenue climbing out of the Horseshoe Bay cove. Try this before you call: hold light turning pressure on the key and rock the steering wheel firmly left and right. The pin releases and the key goes. If it still will not move, stop there. Forcing a key against a loaded steering lock is how keys snap off inside a cylinder, and that turns a free fix into an extraction.
Upper Lonsdale, Edgemont Village and the Montroyal streets sit high enough to run colder and snowier than the rest of the coverage area, and the overnight temperature there drops below zero on January mornings. Cold rarely breaks an ignition by itself. What it does is expose one that was already marginal, taking a cylinder full of worn wafers and tired lubricant from merely stiff to completely immovable in one night. The thing not to reach for is WD-40. It frees the key for one morning and then gums the internals, and the next visit is spent stripping the cylinder to clean out what the can left behind. Dry graphite is the correct product for a lock. If graphite does not free it, the wear underneath is the real fault and no spray is going to reach that.
| Ignition service | Typical range |
|---|---|
| Stuck or jammed ignition: service and free-up | $90–$180 |
| Ignition rekey to your existing key | $120–$240 |
| Worn ignition cylinder replacement (parts + labour) | $180–$380 |
| Cylinder replacement + new key cut & programmed | $240–$480 |
| Ignition switch diagnosis (electrical, behind cylinder) | $110–$260 |
Ranges cover parts, labour and any programming. The upper end is where coded cylinders and proprietary immobilisers sit, which on this side of the inlet means the Chartwell driveways and the Caulfeild custom builds more often than anywhere else in the coverage area. A few older and specialised European models also run proprietary systems that need a dealer token we cannot supply. Give us the year, make and model and the range is firm before anyone sets off.
Describe the symptom (will not turn, turns but will not start, or grinding) and give the year, make and model. 778-262-1107 rings through to a dispatcher rather than a call-centre router, and the range gets settled while you are still on it.
Dig the spare out before we get there if one exists, because that one test separates a worn key from a worn cylinder before anything is opened up. Keep the registration or insurance to hand as well, since ownership is verified at the vehicle before a key is cut. If the car is in the Park Royal structure, we want the centre, north or south, and the level.
The cylinder gets freed, rebuilt, rekeyed or swapped out, a key gets cut and taught to the car if the job needs one, and every switch position is run through before the van leaves. A cylinder that has to be ordered in is rare, and it gets flagged from the year, make and model before the van is loaded rather than discovered at the kerb.
Some cylinders are past it: wafers worn out of tolerance, a plug that moves in the housing, or a body seized hard enough that servicing it buys weeks instead of years. Those get a new cylinder and a key cut to match. Where the vehicle allows we code that new cylinder to the key already on your ring, so the doors and the ignition stay on one key instead of two. On an immobilised car the key then has to be enrolled, which runs roughly 20–45 minutes on a common make and 45–75 minutes if every key is gone and the PIN has to be pulled from the vehicle's control modules. Where the trouble turns out to sit in the chip instead of the lock, the transponder key programming is done in that same visit, and where the blade itself is the worn part, a car key replacement gets cut on the spot.
A car that will not start in a loading lane is the worst timing this fault has. Tell us the boarding time when you call and we will say honestly whether we can make it, because a cut-and-program on a common make and an all-keys-lost job are not the same length of visit. A genuine emergency will sometimes buy a short hold from the ferry staff, one car pulled aside while help is on its way, so put the question to them while you still have us on the line. The approach is the other variable. On loading days the terminal loop and the Nelson Avenue connector seize up together, and with two sailings going at once and Highway 1 queued back to Taylor Way, the run out there stretches well past normal. Late evenings, early mornings and weekday off-peak are consistently quicker. Both the parking areas around the terminal and the Sewell's Marina lot up Horseshoe Bay Road are ordinary stops for us.
Because an ignition fault means the car is not being driven anywhere, where it happens to be parked shapes the whole job. The Lonsdale Quay parkade is routine, and so is the Park Royal structure. The trailhead lots are the seasonal ones: Lynn Headwaters and the Lynn Canyon lot, the Quarry Rock trailhead off Panorama Drive, the Nordic trailhead and the lower mountain access roads branching off Grouse Mountain Road, and the Capilano Suspension Bridge lot when that corridor is busy. Add drive time for the ski-area lots, which sit at the far top of Mount Seymour Parkway. You get a window on the call based on where the nearest van is, and if the winter road surface up there has gone off you get an update while we are still climbing. Deep Cove is the end of Dollarton Highway and the end of the road, and a car that will not start down there is not rolling anywhere under its own power. Eagle Harbour Marina and the Capilano Park & Ride fill out the rest of the list.
An ignition job often turns out to be a key job, or the other way round. These share the van and the technician, so a fault that lands on the other side of that line does not need a second appointment.