1998 Nissan Sentra
Key Replacement - Save vs Dealer in Ventura County

1998 Nissan Sentra Metal Key Replacement - Fast, Affordable & Professional

Out in the Sea Air neighborhood of Oxnard, a delivery driver flagged me down after his key snapped in the ignition of his 1998 Sentra. Not bent, not worn - snapped clean, with the back half still in his hand and the front half sitting somewhere inside the cylinder.

He had already called another locksmith. That locksmith told him the ignition would need to be drilled and the cylinder replaced. New hardware, new keys, the whole teardown. The quote was pushing well past what it needed to be, and the driver was skeptical. So he called me.

I got to his car, checked the cylinder with a light before touching anything. The fragment was shallow enough to work with. I used a proper extraction tool to walk the broken piece out without scoring the wafer surfaces. Once it was clear, I decoded the lock by reading each wafer position for exact cut depths, then cut a new key blank to match.

Slid the new key in. Turned clean on the first try.

He stood there holding the two halves of the old key and just kind of laughed. No drilled cylinder, no replacement hardware, no tow to a dealer. His lock works the same as the day it came off the line. He saved a good chunk compared to what the other locksmith had planned, and he was back on his route inside an hour.

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