Key/Lock Questions

"Paul Hovnanian P.E." wrote: (clip) And I'd like to

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Then why don't you find a nice lock and key set and adapt your Porsche to it?

Yeah, but you'll spend $1,000 on tooling and waste lots of time just to make a $40 key. If you have that much money to waste, I can think of several more pressing things to do with it. Mail order something from "Gunner's Stacks O' Stuff Emporium" for openers.

Even if this is your only car and daily driver, you said you have two or three "Sorta Good" keys - Overnight the best key to Roger (Insured, naturally) and have him Overnight the copies back, and the keys will be back in your hands inside a week.

The odds of both the worn keys finally failing at once is pretty slim - the old "Wiggle it to the left, then pull out while turning" trick will just get a little finickier over the period of a week...

And if it's the lock cylinder failing, the good key wouldn't work in the cylinder either. That's when you yank the German POS and get a Cole-Hersee ignition lock switch. Or Roger might have other suggestions, since he's in the biz and sees this more often.

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Hmm ... you live where Porches aren't as likely to evaporate if you don't have a good ignition lock? :-)

Or -- you don't have a Porche. :-)

Enjoy, DoN.

Paul,

Did you get the spec's I sent you for cutting your key?

so, you would take a nice car, with collector value, and butcher it the ignition switch to save a few dollars on a key? how the heck does that make any sense? It's like taking a oxyacetlyne torch to your bridgeport to remove a stuck gib.

Would love to see a photo of the key to get a better idea of what it is you are up against.

Regards, Joe Agro, Jr. (800) 871-5022

Roger, do you ever get over to Davis? My longtime favorite locksmith, Wallace Safe and Lock in Woodland seems to be out of business and I need some work done.

Yes, Thanks.

Not of the original is worn or not made to spec in the first place. The best key would be made by sending the VIN to the manufacturer and having one cut to the specified bitting.

The ignition lock works with the bad key. Its getting worn to the point that it'll work with darn near anything pretty soon :-/.

Its getting the doors open that's causing problems. The drivers door lock is pretty loose, but the bad key won't open the passenger door (not a terrible problem, as the car has a working central locking system). The hatchback is also pretty stiff.

you are aware that the porsche door handles and your hatchback lock were greased at the factory, and the grease gets hard - some refreshing of the grease in both places is needed or you will have failed parts to replace.

You evidently have not been reading Paul's posts. He has two keys one that works good and one that works poorly due to wear. If stiff grease was the problem then neither key would work well.

ok, message received, I'll stay out of this despite 30 plus years of owning/working on such cars - I am sure you know better.

Bill,

I was not trying to insult you, as a matter of general advice, you were correct in your observation about sticky grease in car locks causes grief that is simple to resolve.

A worn out key however is not a problem that can be resolved with lubrication. If you think a key for a 948 is pricey, you ought to see the price for the locks, and the labor time for replacing an ignition lock.

I'd post one somewhere, but my digital camera has a crappy macro mode. The closest shot of the key is too far away to see much of anything.

I work where anything with tools in it tends to wind up in Mexico.

The last thing I depend on is Only an ignition lock.

That big E350 Ford van that everyone told me to pass on...runs fine btw..and has the ignition lock, an under the dash kill switch, an alarm and a keycard reader

The alarm kills the fuel pump in 2 minutes if its not deactivated as well.

Gunner

Gunner

"Upon Roosevelt's death in 1945, H. L. Mencken predicted in his diary that Roosevelt would be remembered as a great president, "maybe even alongside Washington and Lincoln," opining that Roosevelt "had every quality that morons esteem in their heroes.""

There's a school of thought that says 30s - 2 min is the right idea. Get them out into traffic and THEN stall dead...and stay that way.