Ignition Repair in Boston

An ignition that refuses to turn is one of the few faults that leaves you stranded exactly where you are standing, with the doors open, the car unlocked and absolutely nothing happening when you turn the key. The good news is that the majority of ignition failures are mechanical, predictable and repairable at the roadside, so you rarely need a tow and you almost never need a complete new steering column. Car Key Replacement Boston MA carries cylinders, wafers, blanks and programming equipment in the van and finishes most of this work on the spot.

Ignition Symptoms and What They Usually Mean

A key that goes in but will not turn normally points to worn wafers inside the cylinder, a worn key, or a steering wheel locked hard against the front wheels. A key that turns while nothing happens is more often the electrical switch sitting behind the cylinder than the cylinder itself. A key stuck in place and refusing to come out is frequently a shifter interlock fault on an automatic or a broken retaining pin. If you have started lifting the wheel or jiggling the key to get the car running, the cylinder is wearing out and it is warning you before it fails completely.

What Actually Wears an Ignition Out

Two causes account for most of the ignitions we replace in Boston. The first is ordinary wear, because the brass wafers inside a cylinder wear down over tens of thousands of turns, and a heavy keyring hanging off the key levers on that lock every time you drive over a bump. The second cause is a worn key, since a key copied from a copy of a copy no longer matches the original factory depths and drags across the wafers until one day it lines up nothing at all. If you own two keys and one of them works noticeably better, your key is the problem and not your lock.

Repair or Replace the Cylinder

Our technician diagnoses the fault before selling you any parts. Sometimes the whole repair is a freshly cut key taken from the original code, which costs a small fraction of a new cylinder. When the lock itself is finished we rebuild it with new wafers or fit a replacement, and in either case the new cylinder is keyed to the key you already carry, so you are never left with one key for the doors and another for the ignition.

Ignition Work on Vehicles with an Immobilizer

On any car with an immobilizer the mechanical repair is only half the job, because the transponder and, on push button start vehicles, the ignition module itself usually have to be programmed afterwards before the engine will run. Handling both halves is the real advantage of calling a car key specialist rather than a general mechanic for this particular repair. Most ignition jobs are completed at your location in about an hour, and our technicians work around the clock, so dial (781) 928-8161 whenever the trouble starts. Please call (781) 928-8161 and have your driver's license and vehicle registration ready, since ownership is confirmed on every ignition and key job we take.