Cost of car locksmith

When you find you’ve been locked out of your car or that the lock has broken, it’s understandably tempting to use the frustration of the situation to think about smashing a window or forcing the lock to ensure you can go about your day.

Unfortunately, the outcome is almost always that you’ll discover the cost of repairing the damage, alongside fixing broken locks or replacing lost keys, will be multiple times that of contacting a car locksmith who can get you into your vehicle quickly, and with minimal damage!

To spread awareness about why knee-jerk reactions are never worthwhile, and to explain why hiring a professional locksmith is the most cost-effective solution, we’ve contrasted some of the typical costs you should know about.

Understanding the Costs Involved With Breaking a Car Window

For many drivers, breaking a window to be able to open the lock from the inside seems a simple option. But, depending on the age of your car and the anti-theft mechanisms in place, this could mean you’re left with broken glass and still unable to open the door from the internal handle.

In addition, you will need to replace the glass and have the car thoroughly valeted to ensure there aren’t pieces of safety glass around the seats and footwells. According to industry averages, this could set you back between £150 and £350 for a standard-sized car.

Drivers who own higher-end vehicles may need to spend considerably more, particularly for cars with special finishes such as carbon window tints, which are commonly used as a privacy measure on the back windows of marques like BMW, Audi and Tesla.

Average Prices of Repairing or Replacing Damaged Car Locks

On to the locks, and if you’ve forced the door and don’t have a set of keys, we’d share the same caveat that cars with auto-locking or engine immobiliser systems won’t start or be able to be driven, regardless of how you’ve gained entry.

Changing the locks, presuming the barrel has been damaged beyond repair, can cost from £100 to £350 and potentially more, depending on:

  • The make and model of the car, with modern locks being more complex to replace than simpler, older locking mechanisms
  • Your location and the time of day – we offer emergency call-out services, but difficult-to-access or remote areas, or call-outs outside of normal hours, may carry an additional charge.
  • The nature of the damage. It is far easier to replace a car lock with minor repair issues, and in many cases, we can fix a lock without replacing it altogether. If you’ve got a car key jammed in the lock, a stuck lock that won’t turn, or damage to the ignition barrel, these problems will be more expensive to rectify.

In any scenario, once you’ve covered the cost of repairing the damage caused by forced entry to your vehicle, you’ll still need to budget for the work necessary to fix the original issue, such as replacing lost keys or broken fobs.

Average Costs of Calling an Auto Locksmith When You’re Locked Out of Your Car

As we’ve seen, you can expect to pay anywhere from £100 to £350 if you’ve broken a window or lock – and, if you’d saved the number for a reputable auto locksmith, you’d potentially have saved a considerable amount!

Many factors influence the cost of a call out, but if you’re within the areas we serve around Coventry and the West Midlands and need support during ‘standard’ hours Monday to Friday, the cost of gaining access to your vehicle can start from £95, plus charges associated with creating replacement keys.

While this could be higher for emergency call-outs, we offer a much-needed 24/7 service. The reality is that having the locks opened and a new key provided, even if you’re locked out in the middle of the night, is always faster, and we’ll endeavour to have a locksmith with you quickly if you need to get going.

What to Expect When Calling Out an Auto Locksmith Service to Help You Regain Entry to Your Vehicle

Here’s an overview of how our call-out service works:

  1. Contact Eydens – we’re an accredited Auto Locksmith Association member with 20+ years of experience and can offer immediate advice on what to do if you’re stuck somewhere unsafe or need an urgent call-out.
  2. When one of our expert technicians arrives, we’ll ask you to show them a form of ID to prove you’re the legitimate owner of the vehicle. This is standard practice and is there to ensure that no locksmith ever inadvertently assists in an attempted theft!
  3. We’ll use specialist tools to open the locked car without causing damage to the frame, lock, or windows, ensuring that if the locking mechanism or barrel hasn’t been damaged, it will remain in good condition.
  4. If your car has a keyless fob or a programmed lock, we’ll use a decoder device available only to professional locksmiths, which ensures the data in your security chip can’t be copied or replicated. If you’ve locked your keys inside the vehicle, we’ll of course just complete steps one to three and then leave you to resume your planned journey.
  5. Next, we’ll cut you a new key on-site and use a diagnostic machine to programme the transponder chip within the fob. This means your new manual keys and remote key fob will work perfectly, and we’ll test this before completing the job.

Once your locksmith has finished, you can drive away – and won’t need to worry about repairing broken locks or replacing smashed glass! This ensures the security of your vehicle isn’t compromised and that you won’t need to think about the cost of additional work.

In every case, we strongly recommend keeping a spare set of keys for your vehicle, so that if your keys are lost or locked inside, you’ll have a backup.

At Eydens Auto Locksmiths and Vehicle Security, we’re always here to help make things easier. Get in touch anytime for an obligation-free estimate, and you might just find that a potentially very stressful situation becomes a non-event in the future.