How to Fix a Car Key Broke in Half?

How to fix a car key that broke in half? It's something all of us are going to experience, and if you work with locks and keys, well, you're going to have to try to put these keys back together.

TWO DIFFERENT WAYS TO FIX BROKEN CAR KEYS

STEP 1 - Straighten the Keys Out

To straighten the keys out, you will need a hammer and some solid surface (steel plate). We're going to be flattening the keys out because we need them as straight as possible to duplicate them onto a new blank.

Note: We don't need it to be perfectly straight; we need the grooves to line up and put it into the machine.

Do the same thing to the other piece and get the corners.

Once the keys are as straight as we're going to get them without making them worse or ruining them, we can now proceed to step 2.

STEP 2 - Identify Where the Break Is

Take a look at the broken pieces of the key and focus on where the cuts are. In this case, we don't even need the head of the key. All we need is the main part with the cuts because we can duplicate it, and we're going to be good.

On the other hand, key B was broken right in the middle of one of the cuts, so we have to put the key back together to duplicate it properly.

Since we're done with these steps, it's time to put them in the key machine and get to cutting.

Step 3 – Cutting

Use a standard test key. Since we have two different keys, TOY44D and B99PT, I'm going to be using the TR47 key for the Toyota key and the B86 test key for the other key.

Start with the easiest one first, the key that has not the broken cuts, the TOY44. It doesn't take much effort at all. Go ahead and cut both sides of the key with your safety goggles.

Once you have an excellent recut key, all you have to do is try it and make sure it works.

Next is the B99 transponder key. This key has a break right in the middle of its cuts; this time, you have to be very careful on how you're going to put the key back together in the machine.

Place the end piece of the key first, make sure that it is placed nice and straight, not put in an angle or awkward position.

Finish it up by placing the head of the key. Make sure that both pieces of the key are secured in the jaw. Get it as perfect as you're going to get under the circumstances.

Start duplicating. While duplicating, take it slow and do not push very hard. Once a side is done, have a look. You might notice an extra tiny dip. That was the break from the original key. That's going to happen, and it's going to leave you two options: a) Duplicate the other side, try the key, and see how it works, or b) you can reduplicate it again and get rid of that extra tiny dip.

ALTERNATE SITUATION

'The customer has only one part of the broken key, and it doesn't have all the cuts on it. They can't find the other part.'

What you want to do in this situation is to duplicate the piece that the customer does have onto a blank key. Get the duplicate key into a code program like Generic Code and use a micrometer to decode these cuts.

Now, how the depths are listed in the Generic Code will be from uncut on one side and cut on the other. That's how they're recorded, so that's why we want to duplicate it like this.

You're going to decode those cuts, look up the code series, and then you're going to enter them into the Generic Code program. When you do that, it will tell you what the possible other cuts are. Maybe you'll get lucky, and it'll be one key; perhaps you won't get lucky enough to cut five or six keys. Either way, you're going to be able to get the customer a working key, which they're going to be super grateful for.

Those are the ways that I recommend putting the keys back together. Hopefully, you'll encounter more keys that have the break after all of the cuts, but in real life, in the real world, you're going to get some right in the middle. I would love to know any methods that I didn't cover that you recommend? Comment them on our videos and make sure to include the #LockBoss to automatically get entered in to win one of five free prizes we give away every Tuesday on YouTube. Thank you, and I will see you next time.