High Quality Locksmith is a fast, low priced professional locksmith service Tallahassee.
We are official distributors for Hollon® Safe Company, and we carry their entire line.
Our previous HQ Locksmith site had a large online showroom. We are currently building a new safe marketing section for this site.
In the mean time, if you would like to see the Hollon Safe line, we will be happy to give you a print catalog.
Our new showroom will be online soon.
The first and foremost thing to remember is that one should utilize their existing hardware, and look for optimum conditions for parking their car. In other words, ALWAYS lock your doors, ALWAYS roll up your windows, and always try your best to park in a secure, well lit, and preferably busy area. The efforts you take to prevent car theft from taking place will reap massive returns in overall prevention itself. Thieves are opportunists: If an opportunity does not exist, or requires just a little too much effort to “make the opportunity unfold”, so to speak, then this exponentially decreases chances of vehicle theft. There are too many cars out there, parked in remote areas, with their doors unlocked and keys in the ignition, just begging to be stolen. So simply don’t include your vehicle in that group.
You should always consider supplementing your basic safety efforts, though:
Consider a 3rd party GPS or GPS/Cellular based tracking system. Most of these have a monthly fee, and will allow to see the location of the vehicle through the companies tracking site or other means. This allows you or them to communicate with the police the location of the stolen vehicle, and some allow you to see the location from your computer as well. This is similar to many fleet-monitoring systems.
Report the theft to police as soon as you find out. The longer a thief has with the car, the longer the thief has to find, remove and disable any OEM or aftermarket tracking system.
Consider going to a watchdog website.
Make sure to etch your VIN in your window. If you have nice aftermarket wheels, stereo equipment, or any other parts you worry about, consider etching your VIN number somewhere inconspicuous (like on the backside or inside lip) of these too. It can make it easier to recover your vehicle and parts. You can ask the dealership for a place that does this.
Pin tumbler locks are the most common locks in the world. Generally speaking, this is the type of lock almost all homes, businesses, and other venues implement. Motor vehicles, however, do no utilize pin tumbler locks.
Pin tumbler locks have lower pins, and top pins. The top pins are in a row, from back to front, and have springs behind them, pushing them down. These top pins are all of the same length. Lower pins are in the “plug” of the lock. The plug is the part of the lock with the key hole; it is where you insert your key. If you look into a plug, you will probably see one or more of the lower pins suspended from the top of the plug. These lower pins are of different lengths, and the end that comes in contact with the key is usually tapered in some manner.
When you insert your key, the key pushes the lower pins upward. If it is the correct key, the lower pins will be pushed to the top of the plug, but the pins will not extend up into the upper pin chambers. The upper pins will be pushed up by the lower pins so that they are in the their chambers, and they will no longer extend into the lower plug. The lower pins and the upper pins will be butting up against each other, in a perfect line. In this condition, called a shear line, the plug can be turned (the lock can be locked or unlocked). An incorrect key would cause one or more of the upper or lower pins to extend into the opposing pin’s chamber; the plug cannot be turned.
When picking a lock, the objective is to get all of the upper pins up into their chambers while simultaneously allowing the lower pins to remain in their lower chambers WHILE also applying a slight amount of turning pressure to the plug. This picks the lock, creating an artificial condition where the plug can be turned.
Some locks have special top pins that make it difficult to create this artificial condition. These types of top pins are common in European locks, as well as in many North American pin tumbler locks. Moreover, these types of pins can be added to any pin tumbler lock, making them more difficult to pick.
As lock picking is not a common skill, spool pins are not a popular addition to a lock, and are arguably unnecessary in most instances. Most high security locks, however, have spool pins or some variation of these pins.
Oftentimes a lock is “set up” in such a manner as a long lower pin is next to a short one. This makes the creation of previously mentioned “artificial condition” created by successful picking somewhat difficult to achieve. If a long pin has short pins on either side of it, or two long pins have a short pin separating them, this makes picking even more difficult. If spool pins are added to such an arrangement, picking the lock becomes very difficult.
To ascertain how difficult (or easy) it is to pick your own lock, look at your key. The various cuts in the key indicate the length of the lower pins in the lock. Short cuts next to long cuts indicate that picking would be more difficult, while a series of short cuts may indicate that picking is not that difficult.
Of course, the above assessment does not take into account the skill of the person picking the lock. Good locksmiths usually enjoy the challenge of picking a lock, irrespective of the level of difficulty.
