How to Remove a Broken Key From a Car Lock

Video Transcript

"Good afternoon, my name is Tom Brintzenhofe and I'm a certified master mechanic out of Reading, Pennsylvania. Today we're going to talk about how to remove a broken key from a door lock or any kind of lock. This happens to be the ignition lock cylinder, a lot of times they get jammed, people break keys off so I'm going to use this as an example. Now when these keys, they break off, they usually break off flush right up in here, and I don't know if you can get a good shot at it, but they break off pretty much all the way up inside and really, not real pleasant to get out. Any local parts store, tool store, handles small picks like this, these are your best tools alongside a magnet that's going to get this broken key off. Now a little trick, it takes a lot of patience, you just got a work at it a little bit, get up inside here and work on this key, and once you get it broke loose, a lot of times you can get a nice sized magnet that's - I'm going to use a tire pressure gauge but - use a nice sized magnet, you can get in here and actually physically grab that with the magnet and pull it out once you got it loose and away from them little keepers in there. But that's the simplest way and if you're working on it for a couple of hours and it's just not coming out, it's just not meant to be, most of the time the locks will have to get changed if you can't get it out within the first hour too. Look at your repair manual, your local car shop, they'll tell step by step how to get them out, how to change them, not a big deal."