A lockout ends when the door opens. A fob the car will not recognise leaves the vehicle exactly where it stopped, and on the North Shore that is usually somewhere with one road out. We bring the part, the cutter and the programming kit to the car and hand back a replacement fob you have tested yourself, at a Mount Seymour lot, a Deep Cove driveway or a strata garage off Esplanade.
Where the car is sitting decides most of this job. A driveway off Lonsdale is straightforward. The top of Mount Seymour Parkway, the far end of Dollarton Highway or a ferry lane at Horseshoe Bay is the same work with no second chance at the part, so the van leaves loaded for your vehicle rather than loaded in general.
A fob is a part first and a programming job second. The part has to suit your vehicle, the blade it carries is cut from your own door lock pattern, and the car has to be persuaded to accept it. None of that needs a dealership and none of it needs your car to move, which counts for more on this side of the inlet than it would on a flat grid. The addresses that generate fob calls here sit at the ends of roads and on mountain access roads, and a vehicle that will not start in one of those places is a long slow tow from anywhere useful.
Call with the vehicle details so the right stock is confirmed on the truck before it leaves. That is not a formality here. A Deep Cove address, the climb to the Mount Seymour lots, the switchbacks off Taylor Way into the British Properties and the run out to Horseshoe Bay are all long single-route drives, and a wrong part in the van turns one visit into two of them. Year, make and model gets most vehicles there. Whatever is printed on the casing of the old fob gets the rest, and where the old one has gone missing entirely, a second fob still in the house carries the same number. It is why a caller stranded at the Capilano Suspension Bridge lot is asked to ring ahead rather than simply send an address: the blank and the fob get confirmed on the truck before the truck commits to the drive.
Ask for the second one while the tools are still connected. The programmer is already talking to your immobiliser and the cutter already holds the blade pattern read off your door lock, so the spare is a part and a few more minutes rather than a whole second appointment. It matters most on a used car that arrived with one working fob, because the day that single fob goes missing the job stops being a copy and becomes an all-keys-lost reset, which is the longest version of this work and the one that needs the car taken back to an empty memory first.
Rule out the cheap answer first. A fob you have to stand closer to each week, or a dash telling you the key battery is low, usually points at the cell rather than the electronics, and that is a two minute swap rather than a replacement. We check for it before quoting a fob, and car key battery replacement covers that visit on its own.
| Fob type | Typical range |
|---|---|
| Fresh coin cell, where the battery was the fault | $10–$25 |
| Enrolment only, on a fob you already have | $60–$120 |
| Remote-only fob, part plus enrolment | $90–$190 |
| Remote head key, fob and cut blade together | $140–$260 |
| Flip key, fob and folding blade together | $120–$240 |
| Push-to-start proximity key, part plus enrolment | $180–$400 |
| All keys lost, car re-initialised and a fresh set written | $220–$460 |
Every band except the enrolment line buys the hardware as well as the labour; that one is programming time on a fob you already own. European and luxury platforms with proprietary systems sit at the upper end, and there are more of those on the West Vancouver side of the map. The figure is fixed on the phone once we have the vehicle, and a call taken between midnight and 6 am carries the after-hours rate, quoted at the same time rather than added afterwards.
Year, make and model, which shape of fob is on your ring, and whether it is dead, cracked, missing, or something you ordered yourself that refuses to pair. The part is confirmed and the range quoted before a van moves.
A street address, or the nearest cross street where house numbers are hard to read, because a map pin on the upper Caulfeild streets or at the end of a British Properties cul-de-sac is not the same thing as a route. For a trail lot, the lot and the row. Then stay with the car, because the tech rings on approach.
Ownership is verified at the vehicle. The blade is cut where the fob has one, the fob is taught to the immobiliser, and nothing is settled until you have pressed every button yourself and started the car.
Worth thinking about before you simply buy another one. A fob dropped somewhere above Quarry Rock did not go missing across town. It went missing within walking distance of the vehicle it starts, in a public lot, and it goes on starting that vehicle until the car is told otherwise. Writing a new set re-initialises the immobiliser, and that is the step that takes the lost one out of circulation rather than just adding a working fob alongside it. A fob that finished its afternoon in the water at the Deep Cove kayak launch needs the same step, with the consolation that this one is never coming back to anybody.
The vehicle mix changes once you cross Taylor Way. Proximity fobs on European marques are common through the British Properties, along Chartwell and out in Caulfeild, and those are the systems most likely to want a dealer-level programmer rather than ours. Better to hear that on the phone than in your driveway, so name the marque and the year when you book and we check it against what our tools cover before anyone starts up the switchbacks. Where it is one we handle, it runs like any other proximity key, with the emergency blade folded inside it cut to fit your door.
Six of these sit across the line in West Vancouver and the rest on the North Vancouver side. Pick yours for the arrival window that applies to that address.
The rest of the automotive work, all mobile and all carried on the same truck.
Home, business and door work across the North Shore, booked on the same number.