Journey Of Automotive Locksmithing

In the early days of automotive locksmithing, the type of locks and keys being used weren’t that different to what was found on house locks. Pin tumbler cylinders with regular types of keys were the most common.

In early days, there were a lot of small production volume brands on the road – but they tended to use common locks from producers like Yale or Union, or American equivalents like Briggs & Stratton. Over time, the smaller brands were bought out by bigger companies, or died due to competition. By the 1950’s the market was dominated by British cars, with some European and American models filling the gaps.

By the 1960’s, local production ramped up – with Holden, Ford and Chrysler (along with CKD assembly of other makers vehicles) continuing to use common keys and lock profiles – mainly from the US. A handful of Yale or Union profiles, plus a few Ford, Holden and/or B & S ones had most applications covered. A huge key wall wasn’t really needed.

By the early 1970’s a challenge had appeared – which was the diversification of the Australian car market - with a wider selection of models arriving from Japan, and from a broader selection of European brands. The Europeans in particular liked using different locks and keys for different parts of the car – an explosion in the number of blanks needed to service the market had locksmiths looking to European brands like Silca to fill the gaps the previously locally made companies’ ranges could no longer support.

By the end of the 1970’s another challenge emerged – the introduction of “high security” keys, applied to various luxury European models. German auto lock maker Hülsbeck & Fürst (HUF) launched a patented “double groove” key which Daimler-Benz quickly adopted. This required a whole new type of machine – customers could choose the Silca “Doge” from LSC as a solution, and along with specialist code adapter jigs and blanks, we were the first to provide a solution.

Fast forward another decade, and these “double groove” keys were deployed by Holden when they launched the VN Commodore, requiring more and more locksmiths to purchase a new kind of machine. At that time, the Silca “Club” became very popular. Ford didn’t want to miss out, and launched its own “high security” Tibbe key with the EA Falcon. Again, Silca had a variety of solutions, along with other Italian companies like Orion who sold the very popular “Sierra” machine for Tibbe keys.

By the end of the 1980’s car theft was becoming such a problem that various groups started pushing makers to introduce immobilisers. Holden was quite innovative and progressive at that time. They launched the VP Commodore in 1991 with an integrated system made by local parts producer “Yazaki”, and it was ahead of its time. Through our partnerships, LSC was able to offer locksmiths a device from Yazaki to initialise the keys. For many locksmiths, this may have been their first venture into any form of “electronic security” – but probably nobody thought of it like that.

By the middle of the 1990’s, cars from Europe were coming with transponders as the industry there responded to new legislation in Germany. Silca was the very first to launch a cloning device (and it was basic and very limited in application) in 1994 with the RW100. New versions and other companies quickly followed. By the late 1990’s, Silca, JMA, Ilco and others all had cloning devices. It became apparent that cloning could only offer part of the solution. To keep locksmiths in “automotive” locksmithing, a device that could talk to the car’s computerised control systems was needed in cases when all the keys were lost, or there was no key to clone from.

Advanced Diagnostics was the first quality entrant to the market, dedicated to our industry, although other very early entrants appeared from Spain and Mexico. Founded in 2000, the company recognised a need and an opportunity – the first employees and founders having come from the automotive components industries in the midlands region of the UK.

A colourful local entrepreneur was the first to bring the original “AD100” device to Australia, but the company was quickly aligned with the parent by March 2002. LSC got involved soon after, and offered better support. Plenty of competitor devices were available, and locksmiths had lots of choice with a wide variety of “mechanic” tools also available. LSC employed Martin McGovern, widely recognized as the brains inside AD-Australia in late 2007, and he’s still with us today.

LSC launched dedicated TechED training soon after, and we also helped locksmiths keep in the automotive game and go next-level “techie” by training our industry on Eeprom solutions to solve the puzzle when no diagnostic application presented itself. At this time the number of solutions exploded – countries as diverse as Brazil, Turkey, China, Russia, Spain and Bulgaria, along with the Italians, were all offering diagnostic, cloning, or Eeprom solutions.

A whole generation of mobile automotive locksmiths have been born and enabled via the likes of equipment provided by Advanced Diagnostics and Silca, and their competitors.

Automotive locksmithing challenges the locksmith to pick high security locks, select the right key, communicate with the car and overcome a myriad of technical traps and pitfalls – but we see many customers performing the work and making good financial returns from it.

Today, automotive locksmithing is incredibly vibrant – our industry is the only one to offer clients the immediacy and convenience of one-stop, on-site mobile service.

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Journey Of Automotive Locksmithing

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