The owner had just dropped off the kids at the school and was starting to pull out of the busy drop-off area when a child ran back to the car for something they had forgotten. Last summer, I had a call to repair a Honda Odyssey that had failed at a local school. When the ignition lock fails, it almost always fails suddenly and completely, leaving the owner stranded. But that still leaves the problem of failed ignition locks. With this kit, you can repair most of the non-ignition lock problems that you will encounter. (Honda Service Bulletin 03-068 published ) In addition, they have made available a service kit for doors and tailgates (Honda P/N 06720-S5A-305, H/C 7604499) that contains tumblers, springs, E-clips, and replacement lock plugs (2 for tailgates and 8 for doors). Honda has acknowledged the problem in a “Technical Service Bulletin” (TSB) published in 2004. In order to properly “fix” a jammed ignition lock, you will have to replace the entire ignition lock assembly. It is possible to replace just the lock plug and the tumblers on the door and trunk locks, but as far as I know, there are no replacement lock plugs available for the ignition locks. The best that you can do is to replace the lock with a brand new lock and hope that it lasts longer than the rest of the vehicle. It’s not unusual to arrive on a job to find a Honda or Acura automobile with a jammed ignition lock as well as a door and/or trunk lock that is also jammed.īecause the problem with this lock system is a design issue, it’s impossible to permanently “fix” the problem. This normally happens suddenly, but may be relieved temporarily by the application of more solvent which will eventually only make the situation worse.īecause we live in an age where keyless remotes are used to unlock doors more often than keys, it is often the ignition lock that fails first. This cycle then repeats until one or more of the tumblers jam to the point that the lock no longer functions. Then, without proper lubrication, the relatively harder tumblers begin to wear away the surrounding cast zinc matrix of the lock plug, which allows the tumblers to wallow out larger and larger chambers for themselves. Eventually the locks will start to malfunction, and rather than cleaning the lock and replacing the grease, most users will shoot the lock full of WD-40 or some other aerosol solvent/lubricant that washes out much of the remaining grease. Unfortunately, in daily use, that grease gets carried away by the keys a little at a time and the remaining grease traps dirt and pocket debris that gets carried into the lock by the greasy keys. Since the tumblers themselves are made from a harder material than the matrix that contains and supports them, proper lubrication is essential to the continued functioning of the lock, which is why the locks come from the factory packed with grease. All of those tiny parts have to work together in absolute precision for the lock to function normally. The system uses twice the number of moving parts as most lock systems, crammed into the same space. In all seriousness, the Honda side-milled lock system has become one of the staples of the automotive locksmith, due to questionable design and the belief by many Americans that WD-40 can fix anything. But unlike GM, Honda has gone across the board with their lock system, and has made it standard equipment on all of their vehicles since 2003, and they continue to use it today. That lock system alone has brought more work to me and other locksmiths than any other lock system that I can think of, with the possible exception of the Alphatech locks used by GM many years ago. I’d like to take a moment to thank the engineers who developed the lock system that Honda and Acura vehicles now use.
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