Ignition Repair in Mountain View
$194–$478. A cylinder that refuses to rotate, or rotates and leaves the dash dead, rebuilt or exchanged at the curb. Where the make permits it, the result runs on the door key already in your pocket.
$194–$478
Typical price
18 min
Avg. arrival
24/7
Availability
Three complaints land on this page and from behind the wheel they feel like a single fault. The key slides in and stops there. The key turns onto nothing at all. The key refuses to come back out. A dozen causes sit behind those three, and the cylinder is the last of them to be blamed rather than the first.
Cheap causes go first, in order. Shoulders worn round on an old key stop it lifting the wafers the full distance, and a key cut fresh to code settles that for a fraction of a rebuild. A wheel left hard over against a curb puts the column lock under load and traps the key, and rocking the wheel with one hand while easing the key out with the other lets it go. Pliers are how stubs end up inside cylinders, so leave them where they are. On a push-button car with a flat cell in the fob, holding the fob against the start button will usually wake it.
Only when those are ruled out does the cylinder come out of the column. It is rebuilt with new wafers and springs where there is life in it and replaced where there is not. Either way it is keyed to the key that already opens your doors, so you are not left carrying one key for the doors and another for the ignition. Most people do not know that is possible and are glad to hear it. On an immobilizer vehicle the transponder ring on the new cylinder is matched to the car.
The line worth knowing runs between the lock and the electrics. A cylinder that will not turn is ours. A cylinder that turns cleanly while the dash stays dead is usually the ignition switch behind it, and that is auto electrics and belongs to a garage. Both are diagnosed at the vehicle and you are told which one you have before any work is agreed, because paying a locksmith to discover it is a garage job serves nobody.
Ignition work is $194 to $478 with the $89 visit inside. Rebuilding a worn cylinder on a common model is $194. Replacing the cylinder together with the switch behind it, or freeing a column lock that has seized, reaches $478. Between 8pm and midnight add $52, making the $194 job $246, and overnight add $92, making it $286. A worn key is renewed at the same time when the key is what has been chewing the cylinder, because a new cylinder turned by an old key wears out early. The job finishes with a run of starts and the column lock released each time.
All sixteen jobs are printed here, fourteen with ranges and two quoted once the doors have been counted on site. What moves a figure inside its range is which door it is and how it opens. One cylinder on a house in the old part of town takes the low end. A door that reads a credential, with a mechanical cylinder under the panel that has not been turned in years, takes the time that cylinder has been owed. Say which door stopped you and the range closes to one figure.
- Daytime (7am–8pm)standard rates
- Evening (8pm–12am)+$52
- Overnight (12am–7am)+$92
FAQ
Ignition Repair: quick answers
The key turns easily and nothing on the dash wakes up. Yours or a garage's?+
A garage, most likely. A cylinder that turns freely while nothing wakes up points at the ignition switch behind it, which is auto electrics. It is checked at the vehicle, you are told plainly, and you are not charged for a lock repair that would not have fixed it.
The key is stuck and will not come out.+
Put the pliers down. Nine times in ten it is the wheel: parked with the front wheels pressed into the curb, the column lock carries the load and grips the key. Rock the wheel gently one way and then the other while easing the key out. The tenth time the cylinder itself has worn, and that is freed from inside the column with the car where it stands.
If the cylinder gets replaced, am I carrying one key for the doors and another for the ignition?+
Rarely. The cylinder that goes into the column is keyed to whatever already opens your doors, and the ring comes back the size it was. Should the door locks prove as worn as the ignition, that work is offered as its own figure in the same visit, and saying no to it changes nothing else.
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Open 24 hours, 7 days
Say what the door reads, and the rest of the call is short
Mountain View and the mid-Peninsula, at any hour. A fob, a card, a code or a plain key, and how many doors stand between the sidewalk and you — that decides the work, and the work decides the number. The number comes back on the same call with the $89 call-out and the clock already inside it, and it is the number on the receipt. The labor carries 90 days, in writing.