2009 Acura RL
Key Replacement - Save vs Dealer in San Diego

2009 Acura RL Metal Key Replacement - Fast, Affordable & Professional

Out in the Viejas Area of Alpine, I got a call from a woman who'd been fighting her 2009 Acura RL ignition for a couple of weeks. She said the key would go in fine but turning it had become a two-hand job.

Some mornings she'd be sitting in the parking lot for a minute or more just working it back and forth before it would catch. The dealer had already told her the ignition assembly needed to go.

I pulled up, sat in the driver's seat, and tried the key myself. You could feel it right away, that gritty resistance just before the catch point. Not a broken lock. Worn wafers.

On a cylinder that age, individual wafer positions wear down from the key riding over them thousands of times. Two positions on hers were worn flat enough that the key was dragging instead of reading the cut cleanly. The lock still worked, but just barely, and it was getting worse with every use.

I decoded the existing cylinder, replaced the worn wafers, and cut a new key matched to the repaired lock. Slid it in, turned it in one motion, no wiggling, no forcing. She watched me do it twice more just to confirm it wasn't a fluke.

She'd been ready to hand the dealer a check for a full assembly replacement and a new key cut on top of that. The actual problem was two small wafers and a fresh blade. She saved a good chunk, and the repair took less than an hour at her location.

The dealer's quote wasn't dishonest exactly. A new assembly would have fixed it. It just wasn't what the lock actually needed.

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