Mobile Locksmith in Atlanta, GA: Every Car Key Type, Every Door

4Keys Locksmith is a mobile locksmith for the City of Atlanta, working 24/7 on cars, homes and businesses as a NASTF VSP authorized, ALOA certified, insured and bonded company, registered with the Georgia Secretary of State as 4Keys Locksmith LLC. Dispatch runs from Brookhaven, just past the city's northeast edge, and a van typically reaches an Atlanta address in 15 to 30 minutes. There is no shop to drive to, which is the whole point of a locksmith that comes to you.

The city covers most of its ground in Fulton County and reaches into DeKalb County on its east side; both sides are the same call and the same van. Nine Atlanta neighborhoods have pages of their own, each built around one locksmith topic. This page takes the question every car caller meets first: which kind of key the car uses, because the type decides what a new one involves.

Each job is quoted on the phone before a van leaves, from the key or lock involved, the programming route it needs and the time of the call, and you can see the published rates on our price list. The phone is picked up in English or Spanish; the Spanish version of this page is Cerrajero en Atlanta.

Start by looking at the key, because its type decides everything after it: which blank rides in the van, which machine cuts it and how the car learns it. Five families turn up on Atlanta streets, plus two hybrids, and the table below gives a catalog example of each.

A plain metal key, sometimes with a thin plastic cap, carries no chip. A few cars from that era still ran an anti-theft check, just not in the key: General Motors' PASSLock hid a magnet in the ignition lock cylinder, read by a Hall-effect sensor in the housing. A copy of the blade starts the car, but a replaced cylinder or sensor needs a relearn of about ten minutes on PASSLock I, or three ten-minute cycles on PASSLock II.

A transponder key looks much the same with a thicker plastic head, and inside that head sits a chip the immobilizer has to recognize or the engine stays off. The chips come in named families: Texas 4C and 4D, Philips Hitag2 (ID46) and Hitag3 (ID47), Megamos. Many blades are stamped to tell them apart: a dot, a G or an H on Toyota keys, a V or a G on Honda keys, PK3 or a plus sign on GM Circle Plus keys. That stamp identifies the chip faster than the model year does.

A remote-head key puts the lock and unlock buttons in the same head as the chip, as on Ford's Integrated Keyhead Transmitter. A flip key folds its blade into the remote body, and on GM cars such as the 2010 to 2016 Equinox that blade is a side-mill, or laser-cut, profile, which the Kennesaw page explains. Both carry a chip for the immobilizer and a transmitter for the doors, and both halves are set up at the car.

A smart or proximity key never goes into an ignition: the car detects the fob by radio when you press the start button or, on some Nissans, turn a knob that takes the place of a key. A mechanical key still hides inside the fob for the door. The Alpharetta page covers a smart key with a dead battery and the Austell page a push-button car reporting that it cannot find the key. The FOBIK on Chrysler and Dodge models sits in between: the fob itself pushes into a slot in the dash.

On the call, give the year, make and model, the type from this list, any letters stamped on the blade, and the number of keys that still work. With that, the dispatcher knows whether the new key is cloned, added or programmed from scratch and quotes it before the van leaves. How the chip and the immobilizer talk is the subject of the Brookhaven page; the service is car key programming.

4Keys covers every address inside the city limits, on the Fulton side and the DeKalb side. The ZIP codes include 30303 and 30313 Downtown; 30308 and 30309 through Midtown and the Old Fourth Ward; 30305, 30326 and 30342 in Buckhead; 30306 and 30307 on the east side; 30312 and 30315 around Grant Park; 30316 and 30317 toward East Atlanta and 30322 at Emory, all reaching into DeKalb County; 30310, 30311, 30314 and 30331 on the west and southwest side; and 30318 and 30324 to the northwest and north. Several Atlanta ZIPs cross city lines, so the street address matters more than the ZIP.

To place the technician, name the road you came in on and the exit you took. The Downtown Connector carries I-75 and I-85 together through the core, I-20 crosses it east to west, GA 400 starts at I-85 in the Lindbergh area of Buckhead and heads north, and I-285, the Perimeter, rings the city. For a car in a garage or a lot, say which one and where in it the car is parked.

Each neighborhood page carries one locksmith topic: Buckhead for European keys from Volkswagen, BMW and Mercedes-Benz; Midtown for rekeys when tenants turn over; the Old Fourth Ward for high-security locks and restricted keys at home; Inman Park for locks on older houses; Virginia-Highland for keying every door alike; Little Five Points for storefront locks; Grant Park for Hyundai and Kia keys; East Atlanta for a key that turns but will not start the car; and West End for making the spare before the last key is lost. The metropolitan area page covers the region around the Perimeter.

The building shapes the job: towers Downtown, in Midtown and in Buckhead bring management offices, access control and garages; older houses may keep original hardware; storefronts run on aluminum doors, workshops on steel doors with exit devices.