10/11/2026
There are some locksmith jobs that go smooth as butter and some that.. don’t..
This particular job was a customer who lost her only key for her BMW, inside a downtown Boston parking garage. Immediately I knew it wasn’t going to be easy because my high roof work van doesn’t fit in parking garages and street parking in Boston is, well, street parking in Boston. To top it off the particular tool that I use for BMW requires a seperate mobile hotspot other than my phone, and I had lost my old hotspot device a few weeks ago (most likely left it in another car somewhere 🤷🏻♂️).
So before heading to her, I stopped in at T Mobile to get a new hotspot as I still had my active plan on my old one through them. Needless to say I got a new one, but it literally took over 2 hours and about 5 of their staff all huddled around me and the device to get it working..
So I get to her car and I can get my phone connected to the new hotspot, but not my programming tool for her bmw..
So I removed her immobilizer and engine computer from the car for some take home homework to get the key programmed. And also figure out the hotspot issue. I do have a few other tools that can do her BMW but they’re a little riskier to use and I don’t like to take risks on customer cars.
I figured it all out at home and went back to the car the following day to finish off the programming. Easy peasy right? Nope..
I had 4 keys in stock for this car from the same supplier in the same pack. All 4 of them were bad.. 3 of them wouldn’t program in at all and luckily I got the last one programmed in, but it only worked as an emergency start key, no proximity or remote functions. But at least my customer could now start her car and was officially out of her emergency situation.
I overnighted more keys from another supplier and the customer drove to me to finally get a proper working key, which programmed right in with no issues. I let her keep the extra emergency start key at no extra cost
She wrote this review after she only had the emergency start key and had already paid me full price. At a time in the process where most customers might be very angry with me, she wrote me a 5 star review!
