Here’s the thing most people don’t realize until afterward: the key almost never breaks out of nowhere. It had been telling you for weeks.
You’d noticed it was getting stiff. You’d started jiggling it to get it to catch. Maybe you’d seen the key flex a little as you turned it, and you pushed through anyway because it worked in the end. Then one cold morning it didn’t, and you’re holding half of it.
If your key is doing that right now, stop using it. A lock that needs forcing is a small job. A key snapped off inside it is a bigger one, usually at the worst possible moment. Call while it’s still the small job.
If it’s already broken
Don’t dig at it. The quickest way to turn a twenty-minute job into a lock replacement is going at the broken half with needle-nose pliers, a paperclip or superglue. Pliers push it deeper, and glue ruins the lock for good.
Don’t use the spare yet. If the broken piece is still in there, the spare won’t go in, and forcing it can snap that one too. Then you have no keys at all.
We pull it out from the front, with the lock still on the door. A few minutes in most cases, and the lock usually keeps working afterward.
Why it broke
The key was worn out. Hold a ten-year-old key next to a fresh copy and you’ll see how much metal is gone. A worn key flexes instead of turning, and eventually it bends too far.
It was a copy of a copy. Each duplication drifts a little from the one before. Copy a copy a few times and the key no longer lines up with the pins, so it needs forcing every time. A copy cut from the original turns properly.
The lock was the problem. Grit, wear or a cylinder that’s going. The key was never the weak part; it was just the part that gave first.
It was on a heavy keyring. A ring full of keys and fobs hangs off the one in the door and works it back and forth every time you move. A slow bend you don’t notice until it breaks.
Key snapped, or feeling like it might? Call 844-644-6539.
