Frequently Asked Questions

There is no fixed arrival time across Surrey. The dispatcher gives you a window on the call, based on where the nearest technician actually is, and what moves it here is usually the corridor rather than the distance. King George Boulevard runs the full spine of the zone, and the slow stretch is around 100 Avenue in the afternoon. South Surrey stacks up at the 32nd Avenue interchange, Panorama Ridge at 144 Street and 72 Avenue, Guildford on King George through the evening rush.

Coverage also reaches well past the city limits, and each of those legs leans on one main corridor: 152nd Street south into White Rock, 200th Street north into Walnut Grove, Highway 17 down to the Tsawwassen peninsula, and the Massey Tunnel corridor into Ladner. The ETA you are given on the call is worked out for your address, not borrowed from a city-wide average.

A cross street, wherever you have one. Surrey runs on a numbered grid, and an intersection puts the technician on the right approach straight away. The examples we hear most are the useful shape: 80th and King George, 68th and 152nd, 72nd and 188th, 192nd and 96th.

Some addresses need it more than others. Port Kells properties sit a long way apart along 192nd Street, 188th Street and 96th Avenue, so we ask for a street address or the closest intersection there before we will put an ETA on anything. In a strata complex, the complex name is worth as much as the intersection. And if you are at one of the hillside houses off Panorama Place with a separate basement-suite door or a side-yard entrance, say so on the call, because the tech routes to that door and not the front step.

Seventeen, and they are not all in Surrey. Ten are inside the city. The other seven are spread across Langley, Delta and White Rock, which is a separate city on the far side of the escarpment.

There is no neighbourhood surcharge inside that zone, and the total for your address is confirmed on the call before anyone is sent. If your address sits on the edge of it, call and you will get a yes or a no on the spot rather than a booking that quietly falls apart later. The service areas page lists the lot.

We confirm you live there before the lock opens. A piece of mail at the address, a lease, or a neighbour who can vouch for you all do the job, and the check protects the next person on the street as much as it protects you. Then the lock is opened, and you watch every part of it happen.

On most Surrey front doors that is a standard pin-tumbler deadbolt and it is a matter of minutes: the Kwikset and Weiser sets on Fleetwood townhomes, the Schlage B-series through Guildford's strata stock, the original Kwikset still sitting on plenty of Panorama Ridge doors. Older hardware is where it slows down, particularly the mismatched sets layered over decades on the old Cloverdale townsite. A standard residential lockout runs $95–$160 for the lockout itself, and the total for your address is confirmed on the call before a technician is sent.

Almost always. The tooling is slim jims, air wedges and long-reach rods, and it covers most passenger vehicles and SUVs, plus work trucks and fleet vans. Where the car is parked shapes the call more than what the car is. The Central City parkade and the Surrey Memorial visitor lots are routine, as are both levels of the Guildford Town Centre parkade, the Newton Exchange lot, the Semiahmoo Town Centre parkade and the Grandview Corners surface lots. In Panorama Ridge it is almost always a driveway or the street instead of a lot at all.

Two places run against a clock. At the BC Ferries terminal in Tsawwassen a missed sailing is a real problem, so tell us your lane or parking section and we will get there as fast as we can. In the Port Kells freight yards off Highway 1 the cab lockouts land at any hour, because those sites run shift work. If an entry method carries a risk of damage on your particular vehicle, you hear that before we attempt it, not after.

Usually, yes. The fragment comes out with hook picks and extraction tools, and on sound hardware the cylinder is untouched afterwards. What decides the job is the age of the lock, and Surrey has an unusually wide spread of it.

A builder-grade deadbolt on a Clayton Heights townhome generally comes through extraction intact. The 1960s-era cylinders on the old Cloverdale townsite and the mortise bodies still in Ladner's village core are the other end: often the cylinder was already finished and the extraction is only half the work. That is why the truck carries mortise and euro-profile cylinders alongside standard deadbolts. Either way you are told which of the two you have before anything starts.

Rekeying resets the pins inside the lock already on your door, so the previous owner's key stops working, and so do the contractor's, the realtor's and the lockbox key. The hardware stays put. In Surrey that is the right answer far more often than not, because most of the stock takes it well. Guildford's 1990s and early-2000s strata buildings are still running the Schlage B-series and Weiser cylinders they were sold with, frequently on the original keyway. Fleetwood's townhome Kwikset and Weiser sets still rekey cleanly decades in.

Replacement earns its cost in four situations. The cylinder is worn or the tailpiece is cracked, which is what tends to turn up in tired 1980s Panorama Ridge deadbolts. The hardware is mismatched from years of piecemeal repairs, which is the Cloverdale townsite pattern. You want a higher grade, the usual reason in Clayton Heights, where a lot of complexes were handed over on Grade 3 entry-level deadbolts and a Grade 1 or Grade 2 makes a measurable difference to kick-in resistance. Or you are moving to a smart lock.

Your own suite door. City Centre carries a high share of strata title by Surrey standards, and a rekey on the suite side does not need council sign-off unless your building's own bylaws say so, which is uncommon. The lobby, the parkade door and the amenity room sit on the other side of that line: that work goes through the property manager and we document it for the strata's records.

The part that catches people out is how many separate systems meet at one doorway. In Guildford's strata stock the suite lock, the in-suite deadbolt and the building fob commonly run on three different mechanisms, so a call there is rarely one piece of hardware. Give us the building and the complex name when you book and the right parts come out on the first visit. Our strata rekeying guide goes through a building-wide job in more detail.

Generally no, and it is better to hear that now than on your doorstep. Common-area fobs are issued through the strata corporation's own access control system, which means the strata manager or the property management company handles replacement. Suite locks and fob systems are genuinely separate mechanisms.

On a standard fob-based system there is sometimes something we can do. On a proprietary system tied to the strata's management software, the property manager has to issue it and nobody else can. Describe the building on the phone and we will tell you which of the two you are dealing with before anyone drives out.

It turns on the vehicle, not on where in Surrey it is parked, and there is no area surcharge inside the coverage zone. A basic mechanical key for an older car is cut for a modest cost. A transponder key has to be paired to the car's immobiliser before the engine will turn over at all, which puts it in the $150–$300 range depending on make and model. Push-to-start proximity fobs on newer vehicles run from around $250 up to $450 or more where the part itself is expensive.

The cutting and programming equipment lives in the truck, so the work happens where the car is sitting, whether that is a Newton parkade, a Sullivan driveway or the shoulder of King George Boulevard. Our car key cost guide breaks it down by vehicle type.

Usually not, and you will be told plainly on the call when the answer is yes. The truck carries OBD-II interface hardware and programming software covering most of what is on the road here, Toyota, Honda, Ford, GM, Chrysler, Kia and Hyundai among them, along with most other Japanese, Korean, North American and European makes. An all-keys-lost job means connecting to the OBD port and running a full key-learn cycle, done at the vehicle instead of behind a tow truck.

The limits are real. Push-to-start systems, proximity smart keys and certain GM security platforms get confirmed by phone from your year, make, model and trim before anyone is dispatched, and on a small number of newer high-security platforms the dealer remains the only option. We would rather say that on the phone than at your car.

Often, and there are three different problems hiding behind that one sentence. If the key turns and nothing at all happens, the ignition cylinder itself may be worn, which is a repair or a replacement we do on site. If the engine cranks but will not catch, suspect the immobiliser: the chip in the key has to be paired to the ECU, and a key that was cut but never programmed will not start the car however well it fits the lock. If it is only the remote that has died, that can be a fob battery and a signal re-sync. Say which of the three it looks like and the right parts come with the technician.

Ownership is verified before any work starts, with a BC driver's licence and the vehicle registration. The registration is also where the VIN is, and the VIN tells us the key type before dispatch, so having it to hand shortens the call considerably. You also need to stay with the vehicle rather than leaving it in the lot and coming back, which is worth saying out loud for the South Surrey shopping lots at Grandview Corners and Semiahmoo Town Centre.

You get a verbal quote on the phone before anyone is dispatched, and it is confirmed at the door before work starts. It covers labour and the parts we expect from the job you have described. If the door turns out to be a different job than the one on the phone, you hear the revised number before we carry on rather than reading it on the invoice.

There is no separate area rate, and the total for your address, Aldergrove included, is confirmed on the call before a technician is sent. Cash, credit card, debit or e-transfer, taken on completion.

There is an after-hours rate on calls outside regular business hours, and you hear it on the phone before we dispatch. Parts are quoted the same way. Nothing about the number depends on how worried you sound.

It is worth knowing that a real share of Surrey's work genuinely happens at those hours. Port Kells industrial sites run shifts, so the yard gates and truck cabs come in overnight. City Centre's late calls arrive off the SkyTrain, people getting back to Surrey Central at the end of an evening to find the key is somewhere else. Newton's cluster sits around the restaurants and shops on 128th Street, and White Rock's is summer evenings near the pier. The same dispatcher and the same number handle all of it.

Cancel before we dispatch and there is nothing to pay. If a technician is already en route, say so on the call and the dispatcher will tell you then what, if anything, is owed for the trip out, and that policy is stated when you book rather than invented afterwards. It is not a common situation and it is not a trap.

No, and it is worth knowing before you drive anywhere. 10609 King George Blvd is the dispatch address, not a shop. There is no counter, no showroom and no drop-off, so there is nothing to walk into and no key cutting over a till.

The model is mobile only. The van carries picks, tension bars, a portable key-cutting machine and replacement hardware from Schlage, Kwikset and Weiser, and it comes to your door or to the car. Most residential and automotive jobs finish on that first visit.

Yes. The technicians are licensed BC locksmiths and the work is insured, residential and commercial alike. The technician who turns up is working to the number you were quoted on the phone. Ask for identification at the door. Anyone who will not produce it is not someone to let near your lock.