Subject: Comparison to my old lock barrel Author: oberon as Jerome : member since January, 2006 : 613 posts Posted on: 2007-03-16 18:59:35

It was a few years ago that I had to replace my lock barrel with a "generic" one that the dealer has in stock. I wasn't going to wait 3+ weeks to get the correct one that matched my door keys from Germany, never mind that it would have cost twice as much.

What had happened is that something had broken internally in the steering lock assembly. The piece that linked the end of the lock barrel to the actual electrical switch of the ignition had broken. The barrel was still fine, but when I removed the key the steering lock engaged and everything froze up. The car had to be flat-bedded to the dealer and they got a locksmith in to sort things out. What he did was drill out the lock barrel since it wasn't coming out any other way.

Here's the new and old barrels side-by-side:


The new is on the left and the old on the right. You can see the retaining pin of the old barrel has been drilled out, which is how they removed it from the ignition in the end. Pretty nasty.

Of course they also had to replace the entire steering lock assembly, since they'd drilled through it to get out the lock barrel, but it was where things broke in the first place, so it would have had to be replaced anyway. Too bad they couldn't have saved the lock barrel. Oh well.

Finally a few months ago I got around to visiting a locksmith with the intention to have him swap the tumblers from the old barrel into the new one. He said "sure", but he didn't use the old tumblers at all - he whipped out a box of tumbler blades/inserts and simply replaced the ones in the barrel until he got them to match the door key! He said it's better that way because the old tumblers are probably somewhat worn and it would be better to use new ones. I wasn't going to complain I guess there's a reason the main BMW dealer in the city recommended this locksmith.


And finally, as an intellectual exercise, here is yet another picture:


See the numbers stamped onto the barrels. The old one has "91 51" on it and the new one has "10 03" on it. What does that mean? Well... I'm pretty sure it's the manufacture date. "91 51" clearly means "1991, week 51" (this is a common numbering scheme for manufacturers of electronic chips and apparently some car parts too). My car's build date is May 1992, so that would work. However they seem to have swapped the numbers around at some point because "10 03" only makes sense as "Week 10, 2003" since the 10 couldn't mean "2010". And 2003 is the year my lock incident took place, so that seems to fit. For whatever all that's worth :p

Jerome
1992 525iA
Cape Town, South Africa

• Procedure to remove ignition lock barrel and get at tumblers (pic) - Jerome 2007-03-16 18:40:08 (5690 views)
  • Re: Procedure to remove ignition lock barrel and get at tumblers - bissellh 2007-05-12 01:16:44 (364 views)
  • Great detailed description, Thanks!! (nt) - beezer02 2007-03-23 22:41:57 (285 views)
  • Fantastic writeup - bobbert 2007-03-16 19:30:38 (266 views)
    • Re: Fantastic writeup (url) - Jerome 2007-03-17 04:27:45 (276 views)
      • Re: Fantastic writeup - Shayne 2007-03-17 11:58:54 (241 views)
  • Comparison to my old lock barrel (pic) - Jerome 2007-03-16 18:59:35 (450 views)
    • exactly what broke on mine!! (nt) - bikeman 2007-03-23 21:11:47 (338 views)