A car that won't start is not a car you can bring to anybody, so whatever driveway, surface lot or staging lane it is sitting in becomes the workbench until the job is done. We bring the cutting machine and the immobiliser gear out to it, pair the transponder chip where it stands, and test the key before the van moves again.
Nothing about the programming itself changes from one address to the next. What changes is where the car is stuck and how long it is allowed to stay there, and in this coverage zone that runs from a Panorama Ridge driveway with all night to spare to a BC Ferries staging lane that empties on a schedule.
Car keys in Canada picked up a chip in the plastic head through the mid-to-late 1990s, and on anything built since the early 2000s it is simply there. It carries no battery of its own. The ignition barrel energises it, it answers with a code, and the immobiliser then either lets the engine run or leaves the starter turning over on its own. None of that has anything to do with how well the blade was cut, which is exactly why a key copied from the blade alone opens your doors, turns the cylinder, and gets no further.
It comes down to one question: does any key you own still start the engine? If one does, the chip inside it can usually be copied onto a blank and the car is never written to at all. If none does, the new key has to be enrolled into the immobiliser through the port under the dash, which takes longer and costs more. So turn the house over before you call, because the two kinds of key in that drawer are worth finding for different reasons. One that still fires the engine sets the method and can move your job from the bottom row of the table below to the top one. One that only turns the ignition is worth finding as well, because enrolling a key you already own usually beats being sold a new one.
| What we're programming | Typical range |
|---|---|
| Copying a chip from a key that still starts the car | $80–$150 |
| New chip key through the port, one working key left | $90–$190 |
| Remote head key, chip and remote in a single key | $140–$260 |
| Flip or switchblade key carrying a remote | $130–$250 |
| Push-to-start proximity key | $180–$380 |
| Immobiliser re-initialisation with no key left | $220–$480 |
Each range takes in the key, the labour and the programming, and nothing is added to it for the distance out to your address. European and luxury platforms sit at the top of every row, and a handful of them need equipment we do not carry, which you hear on the phone rather than after the drive out. What is and is not inside our scope is set out in full on the automotive locksmith page.
The immobiliser your car runs is what sets the method, and the year, make and model identify it. Then say what keys you still have and whether any of them starts the engine. Those two answers decide the price bracket.
Say where the car is standing, then say what is next to it. The van is parked there for the length of the job rather than the length of a door opening, so a free bay, a clear stretch of kerb or a driveway nothing is blocking is the detail that matters.
The blade is cut at the van, the chip is written to your car, and then it gets started, shut off and started again with every remote button pressed before anybody packs up.
Most people who ring about a chip key already own a second one. It came with the car, or it was cut somewhere cheap years ago, and it has never once started the engine. That key is nearly always a blade with an unpaired chip: it works the doors, it turns the barrel, and the immobiliser has simply never been told to trust it. Have it in your hand when we arrive, because enrolling a key you already own is the cheapest version of this job.
When nothing at all survives, the immobiliser is re-initialised through the diagnostic port and a fresh set is written in from nothing. The keys that went missing stop working at that moment, which is the part worth knowing when you have no idea where they went or who is holding them now. Because that means writing keys for a car nobody can currently start, ownership gets checked first against a BC driver's licence and the vehicle registration, and the procedure needs equipment specific to your make, so we confirm coverage for your vehicle before setting off rather than after.
This is the line between a chip key job and a lockout, and it is worth being clear about before you book. Once a door is open the driver gets in and leaves, and the address stops mattering the second the lock pops. An immobiliser that refuses to authorise does the reverse. The vehicle stands exactly where it stopped until a key is made at it, or until somebody pays to have it lifted onto a flatbed and looked at somewhere else entirely. Programming at the vehicle is simply the version of this that does not involve a truck with ramps.
It does mean the van parks next to you and stays. A straightforward copy is 15 to 30 minutes. A car with nothing left to copy from can run past the hour with the gear plugged in under the dash the whole time. So the useful thing to add on the call is not only where the car is but what is beside it. A deck stall is easy when the bay next to it is empty and awkward when it is not, and a driveway up on the Panorama Ridge hillside is easy until the second car of the house is parked in behind the one that died.
A dead chip key means something different in the industrial northeast. The vehicle out in Port Kells is often a work truck or a fleet van rather than somebody's car, the yards keep shift hours, and what has stopped is a shift rather than an errand, which is why so many of these calls land at two and three in the morning and reach the same dispatcher they would at noon.
The procedure itself does not change for a truck. What changes is who has to be standing there when it happens. Port Kells sets two kinds of property against each other: the depots and manufacturing units along 192nd Street, 188th Street and 96th Avenue, and the older detached houses and small acreages on 88th Avenue directly behind them. A dead chip key at one of those houses is answered by the person who owns the car, licence and registration at the door. The same key on a company plate in a yard needs that same paperwork from somebody else, because ownership is established before a key is written into a vehicle nobody can currently start, and at three in the morning that means whoever is on shift knowing where the registration is kept rather than an owner you can only reach in the daytime.
Programming is one entry on the automotive list. Here is the rest of it.
Pick-, drill- and bump-resistant cylinders with keys that can’t be copied at the hardware store. Cut, pinned and registered in-shop.
Residential Security Container (RSC) burglary classification: a key-locked security container designed to provide entry…
Car keys are priced by vehicle. Pick what you need and we’ll collect your make, model & year to text you an exact quote.