Broken Key Extraction

A key that snaps off in a lock almost always does it at the worst moment, a cold January morning on your way to work, or midnight in your building's vestibule. SwiftLocksmith's technicians extract broken key fragments from door locks, mailboxes, padlocks, ignitions and car doors across Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx and Staten Island, 24/7. We use spiral extractors, broken-key picks and specialized pliers to grip the fragment and draw it out along the keyway, not drills, so in the great majority of cases the lock survives untouched.

Keys usually break for a reason worth knowing: years of metal fatigue at the shoulder of the key, a worn cylinder that demands more and more torque, or a cheap duplicate cut on a machine that was out of calibration. After the extraction we inspect the cylinder, and if the pins or springs are worn we'll tell you honestly whether it needs lubrication, a rekey, or replacement, and can do any of those in the same visit. If you have both pieces of the key, we can often cut a fresh key from them on the spot; if not, we can decode the lock and originate a new one.

Extraction starts at $75 and is a genuine 24/7 emergency service. The job is quick when done right, typically well under half an hour once we arrive. One request: don't try to fish the fragment out with super glue or tweezers first. Both usually push it deeper and can turn a simple extraction into a cylinder replacement.