
Is Your Key Ring Too Heavy?
It is common for people to use their keychains to hold many different things that are not keys. They put quick checkout tags on them. Adorn them with mementos of past fun times. Hang tools from them or have keys that are no longer used.
While this may seem like the ideal place to put things, in fact, it can cause your car’s ignition to wear much more quickly because of the weight of all that stuff.

If your car or truck has a mechanical ignition lock (you turn a key rather than push a button to start your vehicle), the tiny brass elements that prevent other keys from turning your ignition, can wear or break prematurely. These brass elements are called lock wafers or wafers for short and they are not very sturdy.
Once a key starts getting hard to turn, most people force the key to turn so that the car will start. Forcing just makes the problem worse by deforming or breaking the wafers.
What You Can do to Prevent Premature Wafer Wear
Well that is a pretty easy question to answer. Take excess weight off your key ring.
One way of lightening the load is to use a pull apart keyring. These handy little devices are available in most big box stores and other retailers. They have two separate rings that separate so you can put your car or truck ignition keys on one ring and all the other stuff that you want to carry around on the other. When you need to use your vehicle key, just push the little plunger and separate it from the weight of the other stuff.
Another way to lighten the keyring load is to just get rid of the extra stuff. Remove the mementos, remove the tools, remove the extra keys that don’t go to anything anymore. Once your keyring is lighter, your ignition will thank you by lasting longer.

What to do if You’re Ignition is Already Having Issues
Worn ignitions can cause different problems. They can be difficult to turn or not turn at all. In fact Honda ignitions have a design flaw where after about 180,000 miles the wafers wear out and the ignition won’t turn causing you to be stranded.
Read more about Honda ignition issues here.
There are a few things that you can do to prevent ignition turning issues:
Lubricate the ignition. Spray some synthetic (non-oil based), lubricant in the keyway and work your ignition key in and out a few time. Remove the key and wipe it off to remove any contamination. We recommend using CRC Heavy Duty Silicone because it does not leave residue and won’t gum up your ignition. The Silicone will also flush out any contaminates so hold a folded paper towel beneath the ignition while you spray. Oh and the Silicone works great in your door locks too.
- If your ignition key is extremely worn (like the one in the picture above), have it recut to factory specifications. We have used this method for many of our customers. After cutting new keys, the locks, that did not turn before, will magically work like new.
- Have your ignition rebuilt. When most people experience ignition issues they think that the ignition needs to be replaced. This is not always true. Many times we can rebuild your ignition back to what it was when the vehicle was new. This costs less and allows you to continue to use the same key for the ignition and door locks.
- Take the excessive weight off your keyring. Once the extra weight is removed, your ignition could start to work well again.
- Call Local Locksmith.
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Read more helpful tips and how to information by visiting our blog page.