Car key replacement in Rockville, MD
The last key is lost, the fob has died, or the spare you always meant to get cut never happened. We come to the car, cut a new key and program it on the spot.
Most cars on the road today will not start for a key that has only been cut — the chip inside it has to be programmed to that specific car. Replacing a key means doing both, and we do both at the kerbside, wherever the car happens to be standing.
What car key replacement covers
Everything from a plain metal blade for an older vehicle up to transponder keys, remote head keys, flip keys and proximity fobs. It covers the all-keys-lost case, where a new key has to be made from nothing, and the simpler case where a damaged or snapped key still exists — that one is quicker, because the old cut can be copied rather than decoded from the lock.
If your key still works but is cracked, worn or held together with tape, that is a car key repair rather than a replacement, and usually cheaper. If you have a working key and simply want a spare, you want duplicate car keys. The dealer route exists too, but it generally means getting the car to the dealership; we come to the car.
How the visit goes
- You call with the car's year, make and model, and tell us what happened to the key — lost, snapped, stolen, or a fob that no longer does anything.
- We tell you whether we can supply and program that key, and what it will cost, before anyone sets off. A few very new vehicles are dealer-only, and if yours is one of them you hear that on the phone, not at the kerb.
- A locksmith comes to wherever the car is — your driveway, a workplace car park, a Metro lot — with blanks, fob shells and programming equipment.
- The new key is cut, from the old key if it survives or from the lock itself if it does not, and the chip or fob is programmed to the car. Where the vehicle allows it, a lost or stolen key is deleted from the car's memory at the same time, so it can no longer start the engine.
- The key is tested in the doors and the ignition, and the engine is started, before the job is called finished.
What we bring to a key job
- Cutting equipment for both standard edge-cut and laser-cut blades
- Programming gear for transponder chips, remote fobs and proximity keys
- A stock of blanks and fob shells for the common makes
- Decoding tools to read the cut from the door lock when no key survives to copy
When to call straight away
Call rather than wait if the car is somewhere it can be ticketed or towed, or if the keys were stolen rather than lost — a stolen key is a security problem, not just an inconvenience, because whoever holds it may also hold the address on the paperwork in your glovebox. And if the key has snapped off inside the door or the ignition, do not keep trying to turn the stump: that is a broken key extraction, and forcing it pushes the fragment deeper.
Out of hours, lost keys are handled by the emergency side of the business, which runs 24/7.
After the new key works
Get a second key cut while the first one is fresh — a duplicate from a working key is a far smaller job than the replacement you have just been through. And if the reason you are here is that the key turns stiffly or the ignition chews keys up, the ignition itself may be the fault; that is covered under ignition replacement.
Other things we handle on the same visit
One call usually covers more than one of these.
Tell us which door it is
One phone call, about a minute. You will know what the job involves and what it costs before a locksmith sets off.