# Expat wannabe



## Trigger3 (Aug 10, 2009)

I have a vehicle locksmith business in the UK and I am now looking at relocating that business to Spain. I would be looking at relocating to either the Costa del Sol or Costa Blanca.

I have done the tourist bit to both areas and I have lived the expat life in Madrid for 1 year including some intensive language training so I am not totally unprepared for the move.

I have been searching the web to see if anyone else offers a comprehensive vehicle locksmith service in either of those 2 areas and although I see a couple of general locksmiths offering to gain entry to vehicles I do not see anyone offerring what I do which is to gain entry to vehicles in the event of lost keys and programming of new transponder keys to vehicle immobiliser systems as an alternative to going to a main dealer and main dealer prices.

So a few questions for you guys.

If you lost your only set of car keys who would you call or where would you go to get a new set of keys for your vehicle?

Are you aware of any specialised vehicle locksmiths in the 2 potential areas I am looking at relocating to? I cannot find any.

Do vehicles in Spain actually have transponders in the keys, they have in the UK since 1985 to combat vehicle theft by hot wiring? I heard that they are now in vehicles in Spain as well but I am not sure from what year?

I will be doing some indepth homework during a forthcoming visit to the areas in September and October but any information you can supply in advance would be helpful.

Thanks,

Gary


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## Suenneil (Feb 17, 2009)

Trigger3 said:


> I have a vehicle locksmith business in the UK and I am now looking at relocating that business to Spain. I would be looking at relocating to either the Costa del Sol or Costa Blanca.
> 
> I have done the tourist bit to both areas and I have lived the expat life in Madrid for 1 year including some intensive language training so I am not totally unprepared for the move.
> 
> ...


Hi Gary and welcome to the forum 

Whenever I see a new thread mentioning cars or football I start to panic! you cant mention "transponders" and things to girls (most of us anyway!!) we just dont understand ..... as I have said many times before we only need to know where the steering wheel, petrol cap and vanity mirror are .... vanity mirror is a must of course and most important! :car::car:

Seriously! I just dont know the answers - I suppose I would call my garage where I got the car from  luckily its never happened to me ....

I hope you get some sensible informative and useful answers as the day(s) wear on ... in the meantime forgive my ignorance ... but be assured I just wanted to say hi and welcome! 

Sue :ranger:


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## XTreme (May 17, 2008)

Good website and you'll hit the ground running Gary!


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## Trigger3 (Aug 10, 2009)

Suenneil said:


> Hi Gary and welcome to the forum
> 
> Whenever I see a new thread mentioning cars or football I start to panic! you cant mention "transponders" and things to girls (most of us anyway!!) we just dont understand ..... as I have said many times before we only need to know where the steering wheel, petrol cap and vanity mirror are .... vanity mirror is a must of course and most important! :car::car:
> 
> ...


Thanks for the welcome and nice to know that you know the important parts of your car!!

Transponders - check out my site some time and all will be explained sosautolocks.co.uk

Cheers,

Gary


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## Stravinsky (Aug 12, 2007)

Trigger3 said:


> I have a vehicle locksmith business in the UK and I am now looking at relocating that business to Spain. I would be looking at relocating to either the Costa del Sol or Costa Blanca.
> 
> I have done the tourist bit to both areas and I have lived the expat life in Madrid for 1 year including some intensive language training so I am not totally unprepared for the move.
> 
> ...


Good locksmith in Pego, Nortern CB. There are loads of them dotted around I'm afraid in general


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## Trigger3 (Aug 10, 2009)

Good evening Stravinsky and thank you for taking the time to respond.

I agree there are quite a lot of Cerrajeros around the Costa but looking at them in more detail they seem to specialise in domestic and commercial locks plus CCTV and intruder alarms. Fortunately none seem to specialise in vehicles so it looks like there is a good opportunity for me.

Thanks again for your update.

Regards,

Gary


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## jojo (Sep 20, 2007)

My usual response would be that there is very little work in Spain blah, blah,... However, I had to have a locksmith out the other day at my new house and I asked him how work was, and he told me that he is rushed off his feet, is emplpoying staff cos there are a lot of break ins at the mo and he's just got the contract with an insurance company. He blames the economic climate on all these break ins.

Ok, so you do cars?? I wonder if the same thing applies?? Maybe you could look into getting a contract with an insurance company or maybe contact vehicle locksmiths already here and see if they're looking to employ?? Its a way in!!

Jo xx


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## Zimtony (Jun 28, 2008)

Hi Gary and welcome to the forum (madhouse sometimes!)
I have a friend who is a general locksmith here on the CDA and he is very, very busy. I asked him about vehicles and he says that he rarely gets called out for vehicles. About 1 in 50ish calls he reckons. That may be because he is known and advertises mainly for domestic/commercial work and not vehicles. He didn't sem to think that there is enough work to specialise in vehicles alone, so perhaps you need to think about more general locksmith work, whilst building up the niche business in parallel. It may be worth you calling a few garages to see what they do to resolve their lock problems?
In any case, Good Luck!
Cheers
Tony


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## Trigger3 (Aug 10, 2009)

Good morning Tony,

Thanks for that info, food thought maybe.

I found here in the UK that having started as a general locksmith once I started to do car work there was little enough time to carry on doing general locksmith work.

So maybe it would be a good idea to start doing general as the vehicle work picks up.

Thanks,

Gary


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## Pesky Wesky (May 10, 2009)

Trigger3 said:


> I have a vehicle locksmith business in the UK and I am now looking at relocating that business to Spain. I would be looking at relocating to either the Costa del Sol or Costa Blanca.
> 
> I have been searching the web to see if anyone else offers a comprehensive vehicle locksmith service in either of those 2 areas and although I see a couple of general locksmiths offering to gain entry to vehicles I do not see anyone offerring what I do which is to gain entry to vehicles in the event of lost keys and programming of new transponder keys to vehicle immobiliser systems as an alternative to going to a main dealer and main dealer prices.
> 
> ...


Hi Gary,
About 4 years ago I thought I had lost the spare keys of a friend's car, a Renault. I went to the local Renault showroom/ garage and it took 3 weeks and 90 euros. I think it took so long because it had one of those transponder thingies. Of course, the usual key engraver guy couldn't do car keys. I think if you those kind of keys you have to go a car dealer to get another copy.

A week later I found the keys I thought I had lost


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## jojo (Sep 20, 2007)

Trigger3 said:


> Good morning Tony,
> 
> Thanks for that info, food thought maybe.
> 
> ...


I definately think it would be worth your while googling locksmiths in whichever area of Spain takes your fancy and e-mailing them. Or maybe come out for a fact finding holiday??? If you can get that initial "in" just maybe you could be on to something????


Jo xxx


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## Trigger3 (Aug 10, 2009)

Thanks Jo,

Costa del Sol is the place I visit most often, usually once a year down to Puerto Banus but been to busy the last 18 months to go anywhere. Planning to get out there again either Sep or Oct.

I have spoken to an English locksmith called who operates as Titan locksmiths in the area and he was very helpful.

I did say I would get in contact next time I came over so that would be a good start.

Also need to look at areas to live, initially rental until the business is established and then something more permanent. From what I have read so far it seems to be a buyer's market but not sure how that impacts on rental prices?

No doubt I will find out more when I come down in a month or 2.

Cheers,

Gary


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## Suenneil (Feb 17, 2009)

Trigger3 said:


> Thanks Jo,
> 
> Costa del Sol is the place I visit most often, usually once a year down to Puerto Banus but been to busy the last 18 months to go anywhere. Planning to get out there again either Sep or Oct.
> 
> ...


Hi Gary

Its supposed to be a renters market at the moment - but I still think some of that depends on the area where you want to be. Most areas though have seen a drop in rental costs so its well worth looking around - and be ready to negotiate hard! a lot of people still advertise at say 1000 euros per month when you can barter them down to 800 in a lot of cases ..... October is a pretty good time to be looking too as the main summer season is over, so those who rented out to the tourists will welcome a long term contract if they can get one!

For buying .... a lot of people still seem to think the prices will fall even more than they have already - but who knows by how much ? I suppose at the end of the day its down to the individual buyer to make that decision .... the other thing to take into account is that even though it is a buyers market - thats probably only the case if you are already good to go ... if you need finance/mortgages then thats a different matter, as the banks are much tighter on lending at the moment and obtaining a mortgage over here isnt that easy.

Best of luck
Sue :ranger:


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