uPVC door locks · repair · Manchester
Four parts, four failures, four prices.
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- From £35
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- 24/7, no call-out fee
- 12-month warranty
A uPVC door lock is not one thing. It is four things bolted together, they fail differently, they cost different amounts, and the reason people get badly quoted is that they describe the symptom and get charged for the wrong part.
Work out which one you have
| What it does | The part | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Key won't turn. Handle fine. | Euro cylinder | £35-60 |
| Handle needs lifting hard | Gearbox binding | £45-85 |
| Handle spins, nothing happens | Gearbox sheared | £60-120 |
| Handle droops | Return spring or gearbox | £25-50 |
| Door won't close, key fine | Hinges, alignment | £35-65 |
| Locks but rattles / draughty | Keeps need adjusting | £35-65 |
| Cylinder sticks out past the handle | Wrong size. Snap risk. | £35-110 |
Notice that a stiff handle and a spinning handle are the same part at different stages, and one is half the price of the other. That is the whole economics of a uPVC door.
The four parts
The cylinder
The brass bit the key goes in. Cheap to replace, and the thing burglars snap. Should be TS007 3-star. £35-110
The gearbox
A third of the way up the door edge. Drives everything. The expensive one, and the one that fails. £60-120
The handles
Springs and spindle. Cheap. Rarely the actual fault, often the thing people replace. £25-50
The hinges and keeps
Not a lock at all, and the cause of most lock failures. £35-65
Why we adjust before we replace
Fit a new gearbox into a door that has dropped and the new one starts dying the same day, for the same reason as the old one. The gearbox was never the disease. It was the part that broke first.
So we realign: hinges, keeps, compression. Often that alone is the repair, at £35-65. If the gearbox has already worn too far it gets replaced and the door still gets realigned, because otherwise you will see us again next winter.
What not to do
- Don't force a stiff handle. You'll shear it today rather than next month.
- Don't spray WD-40 in the gearbox. It's a solvent. It strips what's left.
- Don't buy a gearbox online. Hundreds of variants, most look identical.
- Don't replace the handle to fix a droop. It's the mechanism behind it.
- Don't ignore a cylinder that sticks out. That's the snap risk.
Door, or lock?
If the lock or mechanism is the problem, that is us and it is on this page. If the door itself is the problem, cracked panel, blown glazing unit, rotten bottom rail, we run a separate business for it at upvcdoorfixers.co.uk.
How multipoint locks fail · Door repair · Anti-snap cylinders
Questions people actually ask
How much does it cost to fix a uPVC door lock in Manchester?
It depends entirely which of the four parts has failed. A euro cylinder is £35 to £60. A multipoint service and realignment while the handle is only stiff is £45 to £85. A sheared gearbox replacement is £60 to £120. A handle or return spring is £25 to £50. Hinge and keep realignment is £35 to £65. The point worth knowing is that a stiff handle and a spinning handle are the same part at different stages, and one costs half what the other does.
My key turns but the handle won't lift. Which part is it?
The gearbox, and the door has probably dropped. If the key turns freely in the cylinder, the cylinder is fine, so the problem is downstream: the hooks and rollers are no longer lining up with the keeps in the frame, and the gearbox is having to force them. That is a realignment and a service at £45 to £85. Left alone the gearbox wears until it shears, and then it is £60 to £120, or £110 to £200 if it goes while you are outside.
Should I just replace the whole uPVC door lock mechanism?
Usually not, and it is what people are most often over-quoted for. If you just want new keys, that is a cylinder swap at £35 to £60 and the mechanism stays where it is. If the handle is stiff, that is usually alignment, not the mechanism. A full multipoint replacement is genuinely needed when the gearbox has sheared and the strip itself is damaged, which is a minority of cases. Anyone quoting a full mechanism because your key is worn is selling you a mechanism.
Can I buy a uPVC gearbox online and fit it myself?
You can try, and most people order the wrong one. There are hundreds of multipoint variants and they differ in backset, centres, faceplate width, hook spacing and spindle position. Two doors that look identical from the outside routinely take different gearboxes. And even with the right part, fitting it without realigning the door means the new one starts dying immediately, for the same reason the old one did. The alignment is the actual repair.
My uPVC handle droops. Do I need a new handle?
Almost certainly not, and this is the most common wasted purchase on a uPVC door. A drooping handle is the return spring inside the handle or, more often, the gearbox behind it failing to return the spindle. Replacing the handle alone fixes it for roughly a fortnight, because the thing that was wrong is still wrong. A handle and spring job is £25 to £50 and we will tell you honestly whether the gearbox is behind it, in which case it is £60 to £120 and the handle was never the issue.