A Nissan key disappears three levels under a Metrotown tower, in a mall lot the size of a city block, or in a long driveway off Government Road. The car stays where it is and the van comes to it. We cut and program a replacement Nissan key or Intelligent Key fob anywhere in Burnaby. Altima, Rogue, Sentra, Qashqai, Micra, Frontier and the rest.
A missing Nissan key is not a tow and a week of waiting on a part. The van carries Nissan blanks, Intelligent Key fobs, a cutting machine and the OBD gear.
Nissan runs two key systems, and which one you have decides the visit. The older bladed cars, early Altima, Sentra, Versa and Frontier, hide a transponder chip in the head of the key that the immobiliser has to read before the starter turns. From the mid-2000s the range moved to the Intelligent Key, the proximity fob badged I-Key that wakes the car as you walk up and starts it on the button. Burnaby's housing mix throws up both in a week: a fifteen-year-old Sentra outside an older north Burnaby rental block, a current Rogue in a new Willingdon Avenue tower.
Mall parkades produce most of them. Metropolis at Metrotown alone generates a steady run of evening and weekend calls, nearly always a fob set down inside and never seen again. Highgate Village is the opposite kind of site: one open surface lot, easy to describe on the phone. Edmonds Community Centre is a dependable third, usually a key shut in a locker or left on the seat.
North of Kingsway the calls come out of the towers: Brentwood's new builds, the Station Square group at Metrotown, the cluster on the Burnaby side of the Lougheed hub. Up the mountain it is the Gaglardi Way lots and the UniverCity streets. On Government Road it happens in the owner's own driveway, long enough to leave the car well clear of the house.
Most of this city's Nissan work happens below grade, and that changes what we ask for on the phone. We want the building address, the suite number, the visitor level the car sits on, and which elevator bank reaches that level. Towers around Metrotown and Brentwood often have two, and the wrong one leaves the technician a floor away with a case of equipment. Controlled elevator access means someone from the building has to let him down, so mention it when you book.
One boundary is worth stating plainly. The fob that opens your lobby, the parkade gate and the elevator belongs to the building, and that system is the strata's to manage. We do not touch it. The Intelligent Key that starts your Nissan is yours, it programs through the car's own OBD port, and the two have nothing to do with each other. Lose a keyring carrying both and you need us for the car and the building manager for the fob.
Altima, Rogue and Rogue Sport, Sentra, Versa, Qashqai, Kicks, Murano, Pathfinder, Frontier, Titan, Leaf, Maxima and Micra get keyed at the roadside regularly.
| Nissan key type | Typical range |
|---|---|
| Transponder key (older, chip only, no remote) | $110–$190 |
| Remote head key (chip + remote in one key) | $150–$260 |
| Flip / switchblade key with remote | $140–$250 |
| Intelligent Key / I-Key smart fob (push-to-start) | $220–$400 |
| Second / spare key at the same visit | $90–$220 |
| All-keys-lost (re-enrol immobiliser via OBD) | $280–$500 |
Each range covers the key or fob, the cutting, the labour and the programming. Push-to-start fobs and all-keys-lost jobs sit at the top because the part costs more and the routine runs longer. The number is firm once the year and model are settled.
Read the year and model off the registration, plus the VIN if it is to hand. That settles chip key or Intelligent Key and fixes the price.
Building address and visitor level for a tower, lot and nearest entrance for a mall parkade, street address for a house.
The blade is cut on the van, the fob enrolled to your immobiliser, then everything tried before we leave: proximity unlock, push-button start, lock, trunk and the emergency blade in the door.
The dealership route on an Intelligent Key usually means ordering the part, waiting two to five business days, paying dealer-rate labour, and towing the car in if it will not start on the key you hold. Towing out of an underground Metrotown or Brentwood parkade is a cost and a morning by itself. On the van the fob is already there, the programming runs through the port under the dash, and the car never leaves its stall. On the few very recent models with locked-down programming we say so on the phone instead of turning up and charging for an attempt that cannot finish.
Across Burnaby the arrival window depends on where the nearest van is, and what moves it most is hills and interchanges rather than distance. Kingsway at Willingdon and the mall entrance beside the Metrotown bus loop slow a late-afternoon run, so the van comes in on Willingdon Avenue or Nelson Avenue. Lougheed Highway at Willingdon jams at the same hour, and Gamma Avenue or Springer Avenue gets around it.
Two areas take longer. Capitol Hill does, because the upper streets are narrow and steep. Simon Fraser University and UniverCity take longer still, most of all on a weekday afternoon, because Gaglardi Way is effectively the only road up the mountain. Evenings and weekends the whole city moves faster, which helps, since that is when most fobs go missing.
The job changes shape by district: underground visitor stalls at Metrotown and Brentwood, surface lots at Lougheed and Highgate, long driveways in Buckingham Heights and Government Road, kerbside parking outside the houses of Burnaby Heights and Edmonds. One hard edge on the map: at Lougheed we work the Burnaby side of North Road only, and we confirm the address rather than send a van into Coquitlam.
Neighbourhood pages with more local detail: Metrotown, Brentwood, Lougheed, Edmonds, Highgate, Burnaby Heights, Capitol Hill, Deer Lake and SFU and Burnaby Mountain. Key locked inside the car instead? The automotive locksmith page covers that.
Another make, or a different job on the same car? Same van, same licensed technician, same programming done at the kerb or in the stall.