What To Do If You Have Lost Your Vehi­cle Keys

You’ve made the dread­ed mis­take of los­ing your car keys!

You only had one set of car keys, and you don’t know where they are; you could have left them at foot­ball prac­tice, or your ​‘play­ful’ tod­dler has buried them some­where in the gar­den, nev­er to be found again. 

Read on to see what action our team sug­gest undertaking. 

First of all, stay calm, gath­er your thoughts and make notes of the infor­ma­tion you need. For exam­ple, what kind of key was it? Was it a transpon­der key, a key­less entry fob, key fob or a tra­di­tion­al set of keys? This is all infor­ma­tion that will help you explain to anoth­er per­son what kind of key you have lost. 

The next step is to con­sid­er these points below: 

Back­track Your Steps

Before you lose all hope, remem­ber you may have just mis­placed them or not searched prop­er­ly; look in unlike­ly places as it could save you time and money.

Before con­clud­ing that you need a new set of keys, first of all, back­track your steps and take the time to search the last places you have been. Rul­ing out that you will be able to find your lost keys should be a priority. 

Ps, you would not believe how many peo­ple leave their keys in the car, dis­tract­ed by their chil­dren or rush­ing to their next appoint­ment! Dou­ble-check the inside of your vehi­cle, under the seats and the ground around your vehicle. 

Once you have done this, if they are nowhere to be found, fol­low these next steps. 

Gath­er infor­ma­tion on your car and car keys

Con­tact­ing a lock­smith can be wor­ry­ing, be pre­pared to answer the ques­tions of your car’s make and mod­el. For exam­ple, what type of key did you pre­vi­ous­ly have? When would you be avail­able to arrange a call out? 

Know­ing the VIN or vehi­cle iden­ti­fi­ca­tion num­ber can assist the auto lock­smith in sug­gest­ing the best pos­si­ble prod­uct for you, have a look in your hand­book for this infor­ma­tion, if at all possible. 

Find A Rep­utable Auto Lock­smith Company 

By choos­ing a local mobile lock­smith, you can eas­i­ly bypass your deal­er­ship and save your­self from foot­ing a hefty bill. 

By con­tact­ing a local auto lock­smith com­pa­ny, you will more than like­ly be avoid­ing hav­ing to reach out to your deal­er­ship and arrang­ing your car to be towed, stay­ing overnight and foot­ing the bill for their labour costs. 

In almost all cas­es, it is bet­ter for you to con­tact a mobile auto lock­smith, as they will be able to come to you, with­out the need for your car to be towed, and a mobile auto lock­smith can do most jobs in a short­er peri­od of time; cost­ing you less and sav­ing you time out of your day. 

Not to for­get, most expe­ri­enced auto lock­smiths are also trained and capa­ble of pro­vid­ing ser­vices such as vehi­cle lock replace­ment and key fob pro­gram­ming for new mod­els of cars.

Addi­tion­al Considerations

Cost:

Remem­ber what your mum said when you were younger, ​“You get what you pay for”, which can be the case when replac­ing your lost keys. When replac­ing your vehi­cle keys, it’s impor­tant to remem­ber that you want them to last a long time, work well and be secure enough that you feel safe. 

Try not to be swayed by deals that seem too good to be true; you could be sold sub-stan­dard qual­i­ty keys and remotes. 

Addi­tion­al­ly, an auto lock­smith should give you a quote, includ­ing all final costs; this should be the price you pay on the day. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, some auto lock­smiths will leave off the tax and VAT until they have com­plet­ed the work. There­fore, when organ­is­ing the ser­vice, ask the com­pa­ny whether the quote is inclu­sive of all costs. 

Spare Car Keys:

While you are organ­is­ing your replace­ment set of keys, why not con­sid­er pur­chas­ing a spare set of keys. Ensur­ing the next time you mis­place your keys, you’re not left in a wor­ry­ing sit­u­a­tion with no access to your car. 

In the long run, this will save you time and mon­ey; there will be no need to repro­gram a new set of keys. 

Final Thoughts

When decid­ing on your auto lock­smith, con­sid­er all these fac­tors: has the auto lock­smith got a proven track record, have they attained high lev­els of train­ing and how much indus­try expe­ri­ence do they have? 

It isn’t uncom­mon to find auto lock­smiths that have lim­it­ed insur­ance; this is a warn­ing sig­nal. The lock­smith will have access to your car; mis­takes can be made, you want your vehi­cle to be cov­ered with the auto locksmith’s insurance. 

Con­tact our team to arrange a replace­ment or spare key ser­vice, from one of our expe­ri­enced locksmiths.