Three things have to line up before a replacement fob works: the correct part, a blade cut to your lock, and a programming session the car agrees to. All three travel in the van. Read us whatever is printed on the back of the old fob, or the year, make and model if the old one went missing with your keys, and the right stock is loaded before anyone leaves Coquitlam Centre.
Four shapes do the same job. A plain remote, a remote head key, a flip key, and a proximity fob for a push-to-start car. Which one you carry sets the part, the band it falls in, and how long the tech spends beside the vehicle.
Fob replacement is a parts job with a programming step on the end, and the parts are the half that goes wrong before anybody touches the car. Two fobs can look identical across a counter and carry different boards inside. One that pairs cleanly with a given model year can be refused by the year either side of it. That is why the phone call does more work here than it does on a lockout: year, make and model, which of the four shapes you carry, whether any fob still works, and anything printed on the casing. Get those right and it is one visit. Get them wrong and it is two.
Start with the button count, because that is the part people assume is cosmetic. Buttons map to functions the vehicle was built with, so a fob carrying a remote start button will not add remote start to a car that never had it, and a fob one button short leaves you pressing for something that is no longer there. Then the blade. A remote head key, a flip key, and the emergency blade folded inside a proximity fob all have to be cut to your door lock, which is mechanical work done on the van and is separate from the programming. Last is the electronics. Frequency and protocol are set by the vehicle rather than by preference, and the part number printed on the old fob is the quickest route to both. Where the old fob is gone entirely, the year, make and model reaches the same answer, and if there is a second fob in the house you can read the number off that one instead.
These turn up often enough to be worth saying something honest about. A fob ordered online is frequently fine. The failures are narrower than people expect: a shell that matches the photograph but carries a board built for a different frequency, a refurbished unit still married to the vehicle it came out of, or a listing written for a model range your particular year sits just outside. The tech assesses it before any programming time goes on the bill, so if it is not going to pair you hear that at the start rather than after an hour of trying. A fob we supply carries the manufacturer's own warranty, passed on to you, and our workmanship on it is covered if the fault turns out to be ours. A fob you sourced yourself is not ours to warrant, and that is the real difference between the two routes. Have the packaging and any paperwork to hand when the van arrives.
| Fob type | Typical range |
|---|---|
| Battery only, where a fresh cell fixes it | $10–$25 |
| Programming a fob you supply | $60–$120 |
| Plain remote fob, part and programming | $90–$190 |
| Remote head key, cut blade included | $140–$260 |
| Flip or switchblade fob supplied, blade cut and programmed | $120–$240 |
| Push-to-start proximity fob, part and programming | $180–$400 |
| All keys lost, fob programming with the car re-initialised | $220–$460 |
A band that supplies the fob covers the part, the cutting and the programming time together. The two programming bands cover the work and not the hardware. Proprietary European and luxury systems sit toward the top of theirs. Tell us the vehicle on the phone and the range is fixed before a van moves, wherever in Coquitlam the car is sitting. An after-midnight booking carries the standard after-hours rate, and you hear that rate as part of the range before the booking is taken.
Year, make and model, then which of the four shapes is on your ring, then whether any fob still works. That last answer changes the job more than anything else on the call, because it decides whether the new fob is written alongside what the car already knows or into an empty memory.
Better settled before the van arrives than at the kerb. A second fob added during the same visit costs less than booking a second visit for it later. And where the car has to be re-initialised, everything it currently trusts is cleared, so any fob still out in circulation stops working the moment the new set is written. If somebody else holds one, say so on the call.
Ownership is confirmed at the vehicle before programming starts. After that the blade is cut if the fob carries one, the fob is written to the car, and you work every button yourself before anything is paid.
A vehicle remembers every fob it has ever been taught, and it goes on remembering until something tells it otherwise. Two situations make that worth acting on. The first is a fob that disappeared months ago and never came back, which still opens the doors and still starts the engine for whoever ended up with it. The second is a used car bought privately, where two fobs changed hands and nobody can say for certain there was never a third. Deleting the surplus is done on request while the programming tools are already connected to the car, which is why the sensible moment to ask is during a replacement visit rather than as its own trip. If clearing old fobs is all you need, say so when you book, because it is a shorter job than a replacement and it is quoted differently.
A fob replacement is one of the few automotive calls that does not have to be an emergency, and that changes where it happens. A lockout gets answered wherever the car is stranded. A fob is usually booked, so it lands in a driveway on a weekday evening about as often as it lands at the spot where the fob actually gave up. Give us the address and the time that suit you and dispatch works out from Coquitlam Centre to meet it. The same number reaches the other two Tri-Cities, so an address in Port Coquitlam, in Birchland Manor or over in Port Moody is booked the same way, with the arrival window given on the call rather than assumed. Trucks and full-size work vans are booked on the same number: give us the year and make and the range comes back the way it does for a car.
If the spot itself is the complicated part, a stall level under a tower, a park lot with more than one entrance, a gated driveway, the automotive locksmith page sets out how each of those is handled on arrival. And if the fob has lost range rather than stopped working altogether, start at car key battery replacement, which is a shorter and much cheaper visit.
Pick your area for local detail on access, parking and how long the drive takes from Town Centre.
The rest of the automotive list, all of it mobile and all of it quoted on the phone before anyone drives.
Homes, businesses and safes, dispatched from the same Coquitlam Centre desk on the same number.