I knew it was bound to happen sooner or later, a call for a Kwikset SmartKey malfunction came in. It's nearly impossible to see the little teeth on the pin or the part in the cylinder plug that bent. I re-keyed it eleven months ago and considered it a warranty job though the client offered to pay for the replacement lock standard pin-tumbler, which I accepted. First a brief explanation of the pin mechanism, which is different from the standard pin-tumbler mechanism. The pin that contacts the key has a small point which is engaged with an individual slot in the other pin depending on the depth of key cut. Anyway, what happened was the contact point(very small) bent and bent the teeth of the other pin. This caused the pin to become disengaged and non-responsive to the key. I tried to remove the bad pin but had trouble getting the whole thing back together and don't feel they are worth spending a lot of time on. If someone can get one of these things back together , they have my respect and admiration. If you work on these locks or expect to, invest in the reset tool! I see lots of problems in the future with these locks, especially with poorly cut keys. I will have to add the SmartKey line to the growing list of locks for which there is no warranty on when I re-key them because I don't want to go back for free when they fail. The design is genius but manufacturing and materials fall short. I may end up hating these cylinders even more than I hate Schlage's collapsible cylinder. The malfunctions will be good for business at least, I just hope the others I have worked on don't fail! Thanks for reading.



Until next time, Chris G.