RE: E30 Key broken in door lock. HELP

["Fadeev, Alex" <alex.fadeev@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Kyle Sanchez [mailto:bmw_92510@domain.elided] wrote:
> 
> I just went to open my car door the other night and
> snap went my key in the door. Half the key is still in
> the door, forcing me to go enter through the pasanger
> door. (I had a spare key) My question is how, if I
> can, do I get the broken peice out?

Kyle,
One sure way to get to it is to remove the lock cylinder from the door and
take it apart. Figure - 2-3 hours of labor for everything: removing the
inner door panel, pealing the plastic wrap, removing the 'C' clip that
wedges between the lock cylinder housing and the door sheet metal and
disassembling the cylinder. 
Unless you know that the driver side lock cylinder has been recently
rebuild, I would break down and buy a BMW lock cylinder rebuild kit (~$30
from the dealer) to swap out the tumblers. This is the single most used lock
in the car and it typically wears out every 150K miles or so.

> Also there is one more thing you should know about these
> doors one is off my other e30, so the door need a differnt
> key it enter each. So should I just have the lock cylinders
> changed? 

Not changed - re-keyed!
While you are working on your driver's door, write down the tumbler
sequence. Now take the passenger door's cylinder out and using the left over
tumblers from the rebuild kit set the same sequence in the driver side
cylinder.

> Anyone know a good place to do this in East San Diego?
> Or is it not to hard for the driveway mechanic? 

This is a great DIY project - labor intensive, no special tools, nothing to
break and no way to re-assemble things in wrong order. This was one of the
first things I had done on my E30. In a parking lot. Long before I started
changing my own oil!

good luck and feel free to drop me a line if you need any help,
alex f

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