self-service key duplicating kiosks

[James Waldron]

I have literally only one locksmith within three miles of my house, and in that radius I have a Lowes, two Home Depots, two Ace Hardwares and a pretty good local hardware store. I went to that one locksmith and he told me I'd have to leave my key and come back the next day to get the copy. I decided I have better options.

Has it occurred to you that the locksmith may be so backed up with other work for the same reason your "better options" failed in the first place? Maybe he's that busy because he's that good. And maybe all your "better options" are that bad. Fast, cheap, good: at most pick any two.

[Günter VögelBerg]

I clearly just chose the wrong machine.

Anyway, I went to home depot and got 2 keys for $4 in under 5 minutes. I also noticed that the guy who made the keys DID use a wire brush.

[Jon Nuckles]

At my Home Depot, there is an automated key duplicator, but an employee "operates" it. All the employee does is insert the key blank that the machine tells her to and then put the newly made key into the wire brush slot after it is made. The keys were reasonably priced and work well. The machine was probably intended to be self-service, but the customers couldn't be trusted to do even those minimal tasks correctly in all cases!

[Roger Feeley]

At my local Home Depot, a guy basically operates the kiosk for me. But they always tell me to try the keys and remake any that don’t work without argument.

But my HD may be exceptional. We bought a fridge there that was jus a lemon. After a number of service calls and some lost food, I spoke to the manager. I just told him that I bought the fridge there a bit over a year prior, I wasn’t happy and could he help me. Honestly, I didn’t expect much. He issued a full refund. I had all sorts of documentation but he didn’t seem too interested. He also offered a refund on the extended warranty if I wanted. I chose to buy another fridge there in the store and they transferred the extended warranty to the new unit.

fyi, this store was at 7 corners in Falls Church,va.

[Phil Mueller]

Hmmm, just went to my local ACE yesterday to get two duplicates made. Good quality blank. $1.99 each. Both work.

[Joe Hendershott]

Just 2 weeks ago had several made at the kiosk in Lowes. Seem like good quality keys and all worked fine.

[William Chain]

I've also used these kiosk things at the local Lowes with no issues. It duplicated Schlage and Kwikset keys with zero issues for us in the past. Same gauge metal, no issues with the dupes, and they all work. And I've never paid anything near $9 for a key. You found a bad machine; these things generally work. I've never found any humans at the borgs that cut keys in the recent past, only kiosks. ACE on the other hand always has a human working the key cutters.