An ignition fault is the one car problem you cannot drive away from, so the repair has to come to the car. We free stuck cylinders, rekey ignitions to the key you already carry, and fit and code a new cylinder when the old one is past rebuilding, wherever the vehicle is sitting in Coquitlam. No flatbed, no dealership queue.
Most calls that open with "the key will not turn" end in one of two places: a steering lock holding the cylinder under tension, or wafers worn past the point where the key can line them up. Neither one needs a flatbed. We work out which it is at the kerb and finish the job on the same call-out.
Three separate things sit behind the slot the key goes into, and they fail in different ways. The cylinder is the mechanical part your key lines up. The ignition switch is the electrical block behind it that actually sends the crank signal. And on anything built since the late 1990s an antenna ring wraps the cylinder and reads the chip in the key head before the engine is allowed to run. A tech arrives with cylinder tools, replacement cylinders, a key-cutting machine and programming gear, because one ignition call can land on any of the three. What we will not do is guess our way into the rest of the car: if the fault sits outside locks, keys and the immobiliser, we say so on the spot rather than bill you to find out.
The first thing we ask is where the car was parked, because it moves the odds before anyone touches the key. A car put away in a flat underground stall beneath one of the newer towers on Clarke Road almost always has its wheels straight, so a key that will not turn there points at the cylinder or at the key itself. A car nosed into one of the long driveways set back off Eagleridge Drive, or left on the streets that wind up off Plateau Boulevard, has its wheels turned hard into the slope, and the weight resting on the steering column pins the lock against the cylinder. In that second case, rock the wheel firmly left and right while putting light pressure on the key. If it releases, the ignition was never the problem. If it does not release, stop there. Forcing a bound cylinder is how keys snap off inside one, and an extraction costs more than the diagnosis would have.
| Ignition service | Typical range |
|---|---|
| Stuck or jammed ignition, cleaned and freed | $90–$180 |
| Ignition rekeyed to the key you already carry | $120–$240 |
| Worn ignition cylinder replaced (parts and labour) | $180–$380 |
| New cylinder plus a key cut and programmed | $240–$480 |
| Electrical ignition switch behind the cylinder, diagnosed | $110–$260 |
The gap between the two cylinder rows is whether the replacement can be coded to the key already on your ring or has to arrive with a key of its own. Coded cylinders sit at the top of their band, and on BMW, Audi and Mercedes the answer depends on the model year, so we check coverage before booking rather than after arriving. The figure quoted on the call is the figure at the kerb. The service call sits inside that number rather than being billed on top of it, and a late-hour rate is counted into the quote rather than added to it at the car.
Three answers set the price: whether the key refuses to turn, turns and does nothing, or grinds; the year, make and model; and whether any key still starts the car. That last one decides whether a new cylinder can be cut to what is already on your ring.
River Springs is gated, and a car that will not start cannot come out to meet anyone, so gate access is arranged on the call rather than worked out at the entrance. If the car died along Lougheed Highway at the afternoon peak, the arrival window stretches, and you hear that instead of the off-peak number. Say how the car is sitting too, flat in a stall or nosed up a slope with the wheels turned, because a bound column is something we can often talk you through releasing before a van has to move at all.
The tech reads the fault at the car, frees or rebuilds the cylinder or fits and codes a new one, cuts and programs a key if the job calls for it, and runs every switch position before the keys go back in your hand.
Some cylinders are past rebuilding. The wafers are rounded off, the housing is cracked, or somebody has already forced it and split the cap. A new cylinder goes in at that point. On most vehicles the immobiliser does not care that the mechanical lock changed, so where the car allows it we cut the new cylinder to the key already on your ring and the chip in that key carries on starting the engine. Where the car does not allow it, you leave with one key that works the ignition and the doors together rather than two that each do half the job. If the chip side turns out to be the real fault we handle transponder key programming in the same visit, and if the key has simply worn out of tolerance a fresh car key replacement is cut at the car.
You can walk away from a lockout. An ignition fault leaves the car occupying whatever spot it died in, so where it sits matters to us nearly as much as what is wrong with it. Up on Burke Mountain the upper roads take weather the lower city never gets, and we would rather give you an honest travel time than promise a flat number and turn up long after it. On the industrial edge of Cape Horn the warehouse blocks along United Boulevard share exterior addresses, so a work van that will not start needs the building address and the unit number before a tech sets off. Eagle Ridge Hospital is the landmark people reach for on that side of the city, and it pays to be more precise than that on the call. Hospital staff and visitors take up the residential streets off Guildford Way, and those streets are squarely inside what we cover, so give dispatch the street and the nearest cross-street rather than the hospital itself.
A park-and-ride is the one place an ignition fault is not urgent. If the car quits at a lot like Lafarge Lake-Douglas, the train is standing right there, so you can get yourself home and we can meet you back at the vehicle when it actually suits you instead of you waiting in a parking structure.
An ignition fault and a key fault look identical from the driver's seat, which is why one call-out covers both and the diagnosis at the car decides which one you actually have.