About us
The San Jose locksmith without the door-step surprise
Mobile, 24/7, and priced on the phone. Here is how we work and what we promise in writing.
4.9 / 5· 312 reviews from San Jose & South Bay
- On San Jose calls since
- 2010
- Phone answered
- 24/7
- On the workmanship
- 90 days
Who answers for the 408 line
I have spent twenty-three years on South Bay doors and have run Prime since 2010. This valley never settled on one kind of door, from Cambrian Park spring latches to fob lobbies off North First, so every van we send is stocked for each of them.
The number you hear before a van is assigned is the one I stand behind. If we misread the job, the difference is mine to absorb, and saying yes to drilling never moves it.
Rey Bumanglag
Owner · 23 years on South Bay doors · on the 408 line since 2010
The 408 number rings us, and only us
Prime Locksmith San Jose has been taking calls in this valley since 2010, and the arrangement has not changed since the first one: vans staged around the city, a single dispatch behind a single 408 number, and a technician at your door who draws a paycheck from the name printed on your invoice. The work is bolted to things that do not travel — a mortise case on a Willow Glen bungalow, a door handle in the Eastridge parking structure — so the bench comes to the door instead.
It is worth spelling out what this is not, because the listings that sit above the map results almost never do. No franchise agreement, no dealership affiliation, no loyalty owed to one lock maker, and no arrangement where your address is auctioned off to whichever van bids for it first. That last one is the whole reason a phone quote and a doorstep figure part company so often: the outfit that quoted you never sees your door, and the outfit that shows up never heard the quote.
What we stock for a valley of mismatched doors
San Jose is not one kind of door. Ranch houses in Cambrian Park still wearing the spring-latch knob sets their builders hung in the fifties. Bungalows off Minnesota Ave with mortise cases nobody makes anymore. Towers off North First St where a fob opens the lobby and a plain deadbolt guards the unit. Storefronts along San Fernando running aluminum Adams Rite style deadlatches. Houses at the end of long drives out toward Los Gatos and Saratoga, and sliders in Evergreen that fail by lifting rather than by unlocking.
So the vehicle carries all of it at once: pinning kits and cylinders, box strikes with three-inch screws that reach the stud, reinforcement plates for a split frame, smart deadbolts and keypads, exit devices, and key blanks with the programming gear for most of what parks in a South Bay driveway. Stock that broad is expensive to keep moving. What it buys is jobs that finish the same evening rather than ending with a part on order and a door wedged shut until Thursday — a rekey at $26 to $42 a cylinder, or a storefront latch in the $155 to $465 range, gets done on the first visit because the parts are already aboard.
The written pledge
20 MIN
Avg. arrival tonight
24/7
Answered around the clock
$0
Phone quote — locked before dispatch
100%
Card payments — no cash-only games
The order a San Jose job runs in
The figure is settled while you are still holding the phone. Your exact job is priced before a van is assigned, the $89 service call sits inside that total instead of waiting at the bottom of the invoice, and the evening tier from 8pm to midnight at +$40, or the overnight one from midnight to 7am at +$75, is already counted in when you hear the number. If we read the job wrong, the difference is ours to absorb. Master key systems and access control are the single exception: those are walked, counted and quoted in writing, because a door count guessed over the phone is a number nobody can stand behind later.
Then a text goes out with the technician's name, their photo and a thirty-minute window, so whoever knocks is someone you have already looked at. On site the lock is picked, decoded or bypassed before anything harsher is on the table; drilling is a question you answer out loud, and answering yes does not move the price. You will also be asked to show that the address is yours, which is a two-minute nuisance and the single best sign you called a real trade. Payment is by card once the work is done, the itemized invoice reaches your email, and ninety days on the labor is written on that same page.
The jobs we argue you out of
A fair number of these calls end with a smaller bill than the caller had braced for. An ignition that sticks is often a worn key rather than a dying cylinder, and reading it on the spot keeps a $175 repair from becoming a $439 one. Four mismatched house keys are a rekey at $26 to $42 a cylinder, not four replacement locks at $115 to $295 each. A patio slider that can be lifted out of its channel needs blocking in the top track, which costs almost nothing, and no latch sold in a box will fix that for you instead.
Some jobs get refused on the phone, which is cheaper for everybody than refusing them at your curb. A short list of makes and model years keeps key programming behind manufacturer systems that nobody outside a dealership can reach, and you deserve to hear that before you pay for a visit. Safes whose relocking device has already fired, restricted systems whose keys are cut only against a registered card, and anything where the maker's own service department is honestly the better route all get named for what they are. An outfit that never turns work away is not being thorough, it is being hungry.
Where we work
San Jose & South Bay, every night
Pick your area to see local arrival times and the jobs we run there most.
About us
What people ask about the company itself
Are you a real locksmith company or a booking service?+
A real one, working San Jose and the South Bay and nowhere else. The 408 number on this site rings our own dispatch, the technician sent out is ours, and no address is handed to a third party for a cut. The distinction is worth caring about because a large share of the national listings that outrank local shops are booking services: they quote a figure they will never have to honor, then sell the job on, which is how a nineteen-dollar advert turns into a three-hundred-dollar invoice.
How long have you been working in San Jose?+
Since 2010, on the same list of work throughout: lockouts, rekeys, deadbolts and handlesets, storefront and warehouse hardware, safes, car keys and ignitions. What those years actually buy a customer is pattern recognition rather than a plaque on a wall — the fifties spring latches in Cambrian Park, the downtown aluminum doors that give out at the auxiliary bolt, the Evergreen sliders that come out of their tracks. Most service calls are decided by knowing which of those you are looking at inside the first minute.
Can I bring a lock to your shop?+
There is no shop, and that is a decision rather than a shortage. A counter means rent, opening hours, and a drive across town at the worst moment of your week. Vans parked around the valley instead put the citywide average near 20 minutes, with the hill roads toward Saratoga and Los Gatos running longer, and you are told which of those you are getting before you commit to anything. Key cutting, repinning and fob programming all happen at your curb, off the bench that rides in the vehicle.
Who is actually going to show up at my door?+
Someone whose name and photo are already sitting on your phone. That text goes out before the van leaves, with a thirty-minute window attached, and holding it up against the person in front of you costs nothing and settles the question. If the two do not match, send them away and call the 408 number back. We would far rather take that call than have you let a stranger near your door on trust.
And if the lock will not come open without damage?+
That gets said out loud before any tool goes near the door. The large majority of house deadbolts, apartment cylinders, storefront latches and car doors come open non-destructively and keep working afterwards, which is the entire point of carrying picks and decoders. Where a cylinder is seized, already wrecked by a forced entry, or high-security enough that picking fails, the technician stops and lays out what drilling involves, what replacement hardware costs from the published ranges, and what it means to leave it alone for now. Saying yes to drilling never moves the figure you were quoted.
Standing outside right now?
Let's fix that in ~20 minutes.
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