A replacement key is manufactured rather than opened. The blade is cut to your vehicle's own profile, then the chip is written to the car before the engine will answer to it. Both halves happen where the car is already standing, which in Richmond is as often a YVR parking structure as a Broadmoor driveway. Cutting and programming run 20 to 45 minutes once the technician is there.
Basic and laser-cut blades, transponder keys, remote fobs and push-to-start proximity keys, for most makes on Richmond roads.
This is the cutting and coding half of the trade, arranged by key type rather than by symptom. The table below runs to six rows, and which one you land on comes down to two answers: what sort of key the vehicle uses, and whether a single working key still exists anywhere. Three problems that feel identical from the driver's seat belong elsewhere. Keys shut inside the car, a fob sitting in your hand and doing nothing, and a blade that turns in the ignition without the engine following are all on the automotive locksmith side of the site.
Everything below is settled on the call, so the blade, the chip and the figure are agreed before anyone sets off.
The key your car takes picks the row. Whether one working key still survives decides how much work that row turns into.
| Key / Fob Type | Typical Range |
|---|---|
| Basic laser-cut key (no chip) | $80 – $120 |
| Transponder key (chip, no remote) | $120 – $200 |
| Remote key fob (cut + programmed) | $180 – $280 |
| Proximity / smart key (push-start) | $250 – $420 |
| All keys lost (full re-program) | $280 – $500 |
| Duplicate spare (at same visit) | $60 – $150 |
A small number of older or unusual European cars will not fit any row on that list, and a few very recent configurations cannot be finished in the field at all. Which of those yours is gets established on the phone, along with the figure, rather than at the point where a van has already arrived and has to leave again.
Those answer two different questions. The first three pick the blank and the programming route. The last one picks the row on the table above. One working key still in existence is the cheap end of this page, because the car has something to copy. None at all means the key code has to be looked up and the vehicle taught a whole new set, which is more time at the kerb and a higher row. Say which of the two you are and the right stock goes in the van.
The car does not come to us, so the address is part of the job rather than a detail attached to it. Somebody has to be there with the vehicle who can show that it is theirs, which is the one requirement people are caught out by, because it rules out leaving the car somewhere and meeting a technician later.
Cutting comes first, then the chip goes into the vehicle and any buttons or the proximity fob are paired to it. Then you try the key yourself, in the ignition and in every door. If you want a second key, it is made once the first has proved itself and put through the same test. Payment comes after that, not before it.
A key lost in your own neighbourhood often turns up. A key lost to the airport does not. One left in an aircraft seat pocket, in a hotel room at the far end of a trip, or in the cubby of a rental car already handed back is gone for good, and the vehicle it belongs to is sitting on Sea Island with no surviving key to work from. That is the whole distance between the cheapest row of the table above and the dearest one. What moves the figure is not the drive out to the airport. It is that the car has to be taught a new key rather than handed a copy of one that still exists.
The awkward part of an airport job is not finding the car. It is that this work cannot start without the vehicle and its owner in the same place, and an airport car is regularly the one furthest from both. If the car is on Sea Island and you are not yet, the appointment is the constraint on this job rather than the driving, so the slot is worth setting for a time the two of you will actually be together.
Opening a locked door is quick work. Cutting and coding a key is 20 to 45 minutes with a van parked alongside, and that changes what the location has to provide. In the structures under the City Centre and Brighouse malls, and in the residential undergrounds off No. 3 Road, the bay your car is in is where you spend the appointment. That is easy if you can stay with it and awkward if you cannot, so say which it is when you book and the time moves to suit.
West and south of the towers the same job is easier to arrange than it is to reach. The car is on a driveway in Thompson or Broadmoor, or shut in an attached garage, and it is blocking nothing and going nowhere, so the visit gets booked for an hour that suits instead of being run as an emergency. It is also the visit where a second key earns its place, since the blanks, the cutter and the programming kit are already at the kerb rather than an appointment away.
Four makes come up often enough to carry their own pages here: Honda, Toyota, Nissan and Volkswagen. Behind them Richmond runs heavily to Mazda, Subaru, Hyundai and Kia, with a genuine share of Lexus and Acura, which sit on Toyota and Honda platforms underneath and are worked as such. BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Audi turn up often enough to matter too, and on those the blade is usually a laser-cut high-security profile, produced on the van rather than ordered in and waited for. What settles whether a key can be finished at the kerb is the key system rather than the badge, and that gets checked against the year, make and model while the booking is still being taken.
A duplicate is made with a working key present, so the car has a reference to copy and the job is short. A replacement with nothing left has to establish what the key should be from the vehicle's own code and then persuade the car to accept a set it has never seen. Same technician, same van, different row on the table above and a different length of time at the kerb.
Not for this job. The vehicle and someone who can show it is theirs have to be in the same place at the same time, because a key is being made for it rather than a door being opened. It is the reason an airport or a mall bay is worth booking for an hour you can actually be standing in.
The proximity row, and it is the dearest of the four key types because the fob itself costs more and has to be introduced to the car's keyless module rather than just cut. A newer Richmond car is more likely to be on that row than an older one, which is worth knowing before you compare quotes on the phone.
It is the bottom row of the table, and that price assumes the van is already at your car for something else. The same key cut on its own another day carries the visit as well as the key. Everything further up this page is something that has already gone wrong; a spare is the one line on it you can still decide about in advance.
Yes, and a good share of this work is booked rather than dispatched, because a car with no key is not blocking anything and is not about to move. Pick a slot you can keep. The urgent version of the call belongs to a lockout, where somebody is standing beside a car they cannot get into.
Nearly everything ordinary on Richmond roads, and the four makes seen most here have pages of their own with the model detail on them. The honest exceptions are a short list of very recent or unusual platforms that cannot be completed in the field. You get told which side of that line your car falls on while you are still on the phone, not after a van has turned up.
On-site car key replacement across every Richmond neighbourhood, Sea Island and YVR included.
Home, car and business: same team, same direct approach.