Locked out, lost your keys, or snapped one in the door? We're a family-run mobile auto locksmith covering Lyme Regis and the rest of Dorset — over 10,000 customers since 2010, day or night.
It's a warm Saturday, the car is parked up for the day, and the walk down to The Cobb has taken longer than planned. You get back, reach into your bag, and the keys aren't there. They're on the passenger seat, or in the boot under the picnic blanket, or somewhere on the beach between Church Cliff and the harbour. The car is locked, the tide is coming in, and you're two hours from home.
That call comes in a lot from this stretch of coast. Auto Locksmith Specialists is a family-run mobile auto locksmith, started by Steve Handyside in 2010 and now run with co-owner Matt Brooks. We cover Dorset, Hampshire and Salisbury, and we come out to Lyme Regis at any hour. We work on cars, vans and light commercials only — we don't do house or property locks, so all the kit in the van is there for one job.
You don't need to move the car. You don't need a recovery truck. The work happens where the vehicle is sitting, whether that's a car park near the seafront, a driveway on one of the steep streets above the town, or the roadside on the way in.
Non-destructive entry is exactly what it sounds like — we open the car without breaking anything. No smashed window, no bent door frame, no scratched paint. We use tools that work with the lock and the door seal rather than against them, and on most vehicles it's a quiet few minutes of work rather than anything dramatic.
Keys in the boot are the usual one here, closely followed by a child or a dog shut in with the keys. If there's a person or an animal in the car and it's a hot day, say so on the phone. That changes how we handle the call.
Fossil hunters and beach walkers get caught out in a particular way: the keys go in a bag, the bag gets put down, and the bag is either back in the car or somewhere on Church Cliff Beach. If the keys are genuinely gone rather than locked in, that's not a lockout any more — it's a replacement key, and we can do that at the roadside too.
We cut and programme replacement car keys on site. That includes all-keys-lost jobs, where there's no original left to copy from — we read the vehicle, cut a new key to the lock, and programme it to the car's immobiliser so it starts and runs properly. If your keys were stolen or you're not sure where they've ended up, we can wipe the old ones from the car's memory at the same time, so a found key won't start it.
Remote programming is the other half of that job. Modern fobs talk to the car electronically, so a key that turns in the door still won't do anything until it's paired. A completely dead remote is sometimes just a battery, sometimes water damage, sometimes a fob that's lost its pairing after a flat battery on the car itself. We'll tell you which it is before we start.
If you've only ever had one key, getting a spare cut and coded is the cheapest version of this problem to solve — much easier than an all-keys-lost callout on a bank holiday weekend. We copy and duplicate keys for most makes, including Ford, Vauxhall, Volkswagen, BMW, Mercedes, Audi and Land Rover.
Keys snap. Usually it's a key that's been bending slightly for months and finally gives up in the door or the ignition, and salt air along the coast doesn't help the lock barrels either. If half the key is still in the lock, don't force it and don't try to lever it out with pliers — pushing the broken half further in makes the extraction harder and can damage the barrel.
We extract broken keys, then repair or replace the lock if the barrel has been chewed up, and cut you a fresh key that works properly rather than one that needs jiggling.
An ignition that won't turn, turns halfway and stops, or spins loosely is usually a worn barrel rather than an engine fault. We repair and replace car ignitions on site, and where we can, we recode the new barrel to your existing key so you aren't left carrying two different keys around. Same job, same visit, no garage booking.
safe removal of snapped or jammed car keys.
Learn morefor keyless systems and fobs.
Learn moreroadside service for lost or stolen keys.
Learn morefixes for jammed or damaged locks.
Learn morefixes for jammed ignitions, switches and barrels.
Learn morerapid, non-destructive entry.
Learn morepriority service and volume discounts for local businesses.
Learn morehigh-quality duplicates for all traditional and modern vehicles.
Learn moreFrom your first call to getting back on the road
Ring us with your location and the problem.
Our van arrives normally within 1 hour with all the tools we need.
Get on with your day. Card or cash, fixed quote, no surprises.
Ring us before you try anything clever. 07967 624846 is answered 24 hours a day, and the call itself is worth having even if you decide to leave the car overnight — we'll tell you what you're dealing with, what it takes to fix, and roughly when we could be with you.
Have the make, model and year ready if you can, and the registration. That tells us which key blank, which programming kit and which lock tooling to bring, so the job gets done on the first visit rather than turning into two.
Most jobs in Lyme Regis are done in one visit, usually somewhere between half an hour and an hour and a half of work once we're there. Our average response time is 45 minutes, and we're typically on-site within the hour — though summer traffic on the roads into town can stretch that. We'll give you a realistic time on the phone, not an optimistic one.
In July and August the town fills up, the car parks fill up, and most of our calls here are visitors — people a long way from a spare key, often on a Sunday, often with a train or a ferry to think about. That's the situation replacement keys exist for. We cut and code on the spot precisely because posting a spare down from somewhere else isn't a plan when you're standing in a car park at six in the evening.
Winter is quieter and the calls change. Cold weather finds tired ignition barrels and dying fob batteries, and the hills around the town mean a car that won't start is a car that isn't going anywhere on its own. Same service, less queueing to get to you.
This happens often enough that it's worth saying plainly: people order a cheap key shell or blank fob online because it looks like the cheaper option, and it usually isn't. A lot of those listings don't make clear that the casing is only the outside — the blade still has to be cut to your locks and the transponder coded to your car before it does anything, and a low-quality or wrong-spec blank often can't be made to work at all.
When that happens, you haven't saved money — you've spent it twice. You've paid for a part that doesn't work, and you still need us to supply and fit a proper replacement key to actually get you going, which costs more in total than if you'd called us first, and you've lost the time waiting on a part that was never going to do the job. Bring the shell out when we arrive regardless — occasionally we can salvage the electronics and cut it properly, which does save you the second purchase — but the safer bet, and usually the cheaper one, is to let us sort it from the start.
Read our Google reviews from across Dorset & Hampshire
lillymanci
Had damage to both sets of my Bentley car keys. Auto locksmith specialists in Bournemouth went above and beyond to help me out by repairing both sets very quickly and at a great & comprehensive price . Fantastic service from start to finish would highly recommend them and would definitely use again !! Shawn
Daniel Swann
I was down in Bournemouth for the weekend when I lost my keys. I called up Auto Locksmith Specialists, they sent out a guy called Matt who helped me get back in my car. Matt was a lovely lad, and I was very impressed he managed to get me into my car without my keys! They also cut me a key! 10/10 would recommend👍🏼
Rae Adby
Really prompt, efficient call out from Matt. Cut a spare key for a van - no issues. Would highly recommend this company.
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Answers to your auto locksmith service questions
Yes. We cover Lyme Regis and the surrounding West Dorset area, including Charmouth, Uplyme, Axminster and Bridport, and out along the Jurassic Coast in both directions. We also cover the rest of Dorset, most of Hampshire, and Salisbury in Wiltshire from the same mobile fleet.
