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Having to jiggle the key? It is really common for it to become increasingly difficult to turn a Ford Transit ignition key. It’s no good squirting WD40 in it. Oil will not make worn metal grow back. One day you’ll try to the start the van and the key won’t turn. The lock/key has worn too far.

The photo above shows a new HU101 Ford Lock wafer. The arrow points to the shoulder where it interfaces with the key. It is a nice sharp edge. The wafer will be pushed to the correct height to allow the lock to turn.

Now look at the wafers below. These are worn wafers from a jammed Ford Transit ignition lock that we had to extract and replace. Customer was unable to start the van. The lock was swimming in WD40. The warning signs had been ignored. The arrows point to the worn shoulders. The key had also worn.

Worn wafer shoulders from a failed ignition lock

When replacing Ford ignition locks we always use genuine Ford or OEM parts kits.

We’ve attended 4 failed Ford ignition barrels within 3 weeks. None of the keys would turn. Some of the steering locks were on. The owners had all ignored a difficulty turning the key. Squirting WD40 won’t make make a broken spring or a worn wafer grow back. Don’t ignore a key that’s difficult to turn – it is telling you that something is going wrong.

Builders, plasterers, any sort of work van are the most likely to have a failed ignition barrel.

In one case the customer attempted to DIY release the steering lock by drilling whatever they thought might do it. In doing so they drilled into the wiring loom. That in turn destroyed the BCM (brain of the van) and causing hundreds, if not thousands of pounds of damage. (An auto electrician repaired the wiring loom, then discovered the BCM damage).

A different customer took an angle grinder to the steering column housing. Admittedly they did release the steering lock. Unfortunately the part they destroyed cost about £480+ VAT, plus labour. And they still needed a new lock.

An auto locksmith knows how to remove a failed Ford ignition. They won’t damage your van. They can build you a new lock to match the original lock. Replacing the lock before it fails will be cheaper for you, an reduce the overall cost.

It it’s starting to become difficult to turn your Volkswagen or Ford ignition barrel then don’t ignore it. Get it replaced ASAP. WD40 isn’t going to repair worn metal or a broken spring.

Ford Transit and Custom ignition barrels are well known for failing. You might be able to wiggle the key and get it working today, tomorrow it might jam forever and you’ll be stuck at the side of the road. It is easy to replace when you can still turn the key. It’s a lot more difficult to replace when the lock cannot be turned.

VW, Audi, Seat locks tend to fail in a different way. It isn’t the lock barrel that fails. It’s normally the steering column housing. Again, don’t ignore it. To repair it may require cowling off, airbag off, steering wheel off, switchgear off. (If the steering wheel etc have to come off then that’s a job for a mechanic).

If your key is awkward to turn in the ignition barrel, don’t ignore it. It won’t go away. Squirting WD40 in there won’t magically regrow a worn key, a collapsed spring or other broken part.

One day you’ll try to turn it, and you can’t. You’re stuck. We were able to root-canal the failed internals of the above Ford lock out, disable the steering lock and get the customer driving again. It would’ve been much cheaper and easer to have had it replaced before it jammed.

This is especially common on Transits and other builders/work vans but does happen to cars too. VW/Audi cars are particularly prone.

Some crackers have plastic keys in. Unfortunately they replicate an actual key blank that will fit into (but not unlock) many door locks. Here’s one we retrieved earlier.

Your darling child or (evil little horror) is just itching to try it in your door lock and snap it off inside. That’s probably better than them swallowing it though.

Leave some mince pies and a glass of milk if you have to call an emergency locksmith. Ho, ho ho!

If your UPVC/composite door key turns but won’t unlock there are several possible reasons.

Do you live on St Mary’s in Ross on Wye, or a new estate in Lydney? If your lock/key looks like this then your lock may be faulty. We replace plenty of these on these estates.

Because of the internal/external thickness of the doors, your options are limited for an alternative lock. Not many manufacturers make them in the length you need with the same level of security for your ATK lock replacement. These are British Standard 3* locks.

It’s only the front door locks with the thumbturn that are unreliable. The ATK ones fitted to your patio doors with keyhole both sides work ok.

It’s been probably 10 years since last coming across these things. This house had 6 of these horrible mechanisms that had broken. (A massive garage spider was living in the frame of one of them). Most of these windows ever fitted broke years ago and have already been replaced. The Tallon system can be very secure but in reality it just means they’ll break and jam your windows securely shut.

With the correct tools and equipment it is possible to repair UPVC jammed windows and fit a modern system in their place. That is much cheaper than completely replacing the windows. Hopefully these will be the last Tallons we need to work on. I’d hope it was the last time a huge window spider runs up my arm but that’s been proved wrong already this week.

The vehicle pictured below was crashed/recovered without the keycard. You can see the airbags have deployed. A new remote has now been programmed to the vehicle. Typically the airbag module needs to be replaced/reset before the vehicle will run.

Car keys.

This little piece of metal (biro tip for scale) below snaps in a particular make/model of UPVC door multipoint. If it breaks the door is jammed shut. The same part had broken off in 6 other doors at a single property we attended recently. That rendered all the doors jammed shut.

The doors were carelessly installed / had moved out of alignment. Correctly aligning the doors when they became difficult to lock would have prevented this failure. Instead the problem was ignored until one by one, the mechanisms broke and the doors couldn’t be opened. That 1.5mm x 2mm piece of nasty diecast metal will snap off if undue force is required to lock the door.

The particular component shown below from another particular UPVC door make/model is responsible for around 80% of door failures in new/recent builds that we get called to. We can see 2 or 3 of this broken part in a single day. It’s not unusual for a badly fitted door to jam shut the day the customer has moved in, or the builders haven’t even handed it it over yet.

Squirting WD40 in the lock, or filing parts off the frame might make your door work better temporarily. Unless you correct the fault it is just delaying the inevitable.

UPVC repairs

The above type of remotes was used on older Mercedes vehicles. They were unusual in that the remote does not use transponder in the conventional RF range.

Instead these remotes communicated their unique ID to the vehicle via infra-red. The LED looks much like that you’d find in a TV remote. Unless a correctly programmed remote was detected the EIS (electronic ignition slot) would not turn.

Sometimes when people replace the battery in these remotes the IR LED becomes damaged or bent. That can prevent the vehicle from starting. It is much simpler to add a spare remote to these vehicles than it is to replace one if all remotes are lost/broken.

This style of remote is still used on current vehicles such as Chrysler/Dodge/Ram. Instead of the Mercedes type IR LED they use a conventional transponder. Depending on the vehicle the remote can have up to 7 buttons doing different functions.