About
One locksmith for all three cities, on the line since 2014.
Fremont, Newark and Union City share one dispatch and one price list. Here is who runs the work, what the van keeps on board for doors this old and this new, and what lands on the receipt.
4.9 / 5· 412 reviews from Fremont, Newark & Union City
2014
Working the three cities since
24/7
Dispatch answers
90 days
Warranty on the work
One line for three cities
I started Tri-City in 2014 so that Newark and Union City would never be the far end of somebody's Fremont map. Twelve years on, all three still share one line and one price list, and I still work calls out of the van most weeks.
The part I answer for myself is the number you get before anyone drives. If the man at your door is not the face from the text, send him off and call the line again.
Harpreet Sandhu
Owner · 18 years across the Tri-City · with Tri-City Locksmith since 2014
Answered in Fremont, dispatched to all three cities
Tri-City Locksmith has been taking calls since 2014, and the three cities in the name were the whole territory from the first week: Fremont, Newark and Union City, with none of them treated as the outer edge of somebody else's map. There has never been a counter, and that was deliberate — a counter serves whoever happens to live nearest it, while the work itself sits at a front door in Centerville, a shopfront on Thornton Ave or a truck cab at Union Landing. So the bench travels. Harpreet Sandhu runs that bench and is still out on calls most weeks, carrying eighteen years on doors in this corner of Alameda County, six more than the company has on its own sign.
A few questions come up often enough to answer here. Nobody bought a franchise to hang this name on, no dealership sits behind it, no lock maker or car brand has any say in what goes on your door, and no middleman is reselling your address to whichever van answers a ping first. One line rings one dispatch, whether the call starts in the Niles hills, on Central Ave in Newark or along Alvarado-Niles Rd, and the technician who knocks draws his pay from the business printed on the invoice you were quoted from.
Loaded for three cities that were built in different decades
One van has to answer for housing stock that spans a century, so the shelves are built to cover all of it in a single trip. Mortise cases, rim locks and period strikes for the 1910s houses in Niles. Deadbolts, handlesets and keypad locks for the ranch streets of Glenmoor and Sundale, and for the newer townhomes down by Warm Springs and the BART station. Aluminum deadlatches, hookbolts and exit devices for the shopfronts on Fremont Blvd, the retail at Pacific Commons and the warehouse doors through the Newark industrial belt off Cherry St. Strike plates, three-inch screws and jamb armor for the doors that sagged rather than broke. Blanks, transponders and programmers for the makes sold along Auto Mall Pkwy and parked overnight in Union City driveways.
Nothing waits at a shop address, because a single address would leave one city close and two cities queuing behind it. The vans spread across all three instead: Fremont averages 25 minutes curb to curb, Newark runs nearer 22, Union City about 25, and calls from Milpitas, Hayward or North San Jose land in the 30-to-35 range. Carrying stock this deep is also what keeps most jobs to one visit, since an ordered part means a chair wedged under a handle overnight and a second drive back over I-880.
The Tri-City Straight-Price Promise
Four things that hold on every job, every hour, everywhere in the Tri-City area. The workmanship carries ninety days, on the work order.
25 MIN
average arrival across Fremont
24/7
runs every night, weekends and holidays included
$89
Calls answered 24/7. $89 service call, credited toward the work.
0
price changes once you approve the call quote
Booked on the phone, settled at the door
Your figure is fixed while you are still on the call. It comes off the published ranges, the $89 service call sits inside that figure and is credited toward the work rather than added underneath it, and the hour-of-day adds are named in the same breath: $35 for an arrival between 8pm and midnight, $65 between midnight and 7am. A $109 daytime house lockout therefore reads $144 in the evening and $174 in the small hours, and you have all three numbers before anyone touches a key. Master key systems and access control are the one exception. Those get walked, counted and written up first, because a system priced off a phone description is a system nobody can stand behind later.
Once the job is booked a text goes out carrying the technician's name, his photo and the arrival window, so the man on your step is a face you have already seen. At the address he confirms the home, the car or the suite belongs to you, then picks, decodes or bypasses. A drill enters the job only after you have heard what replacement hardware costs and agreed to it out loud, and agreeing does not move the number from the call. Pay by card at the door, the itemized receipt reaches your inbox before the van clears the street, and ninety days of workmanship coverage is written on the same work order as the price.
The cheaper answer, and the jobs we hand back
The cheaper answer gets said first, even when it costs the ticket. A deadbolt that has stopped throwing has usually lost its alignment rather than its guts: the slab has sunk a few millimeters on worn hinges and the bolt now catches the lip of the strike. Moving that strike and driving a pair of three-inch screws through to the stud fixes it, and that is a short line rather than new hardware. A house carrying five unmatched keys wants a rekey at $22 to $38 a cylinder, not five locks on the card. A mortise case out of a Niles house can generally be cleaned, re-sprung and re-pinned instead of swapped, which also means the original trim never has to come off the door.
Other calls are turned away on the phone rather than after a drive across three cities. A Tesla off the Fremont Auto Mall is a lockout opening and nothing more, since its key cards and phone keys are added through the car's own screen instead of being cut or programmed by a locksmith, and that belongs in the first minute of the conversation. Restricted keyways that only their maker can duplicate go back to that maker, along with the handful of makes whose programming no aftermarket tool reaches. When a part genuinely has to be ordered, an exit device or an ignition cylinder, the wait is stated on the call instead of discovered in your driveway two days on. Handing a job back loses one invoice and keeps the reason the phone rings the next time.
Where we work
Fremont, Newark & Union City, any hour
Pick your area for its own arrival time and the jobs we run there most.
FAQ
What people ask about the business itself
Is this your own shop, or a call center that forwards the job?+
Our own, and the Tri-City area is the entire territory. The line on this site rings this business, the technician sent out is paid by it, and your job is not passed down to a third van for a cut. It is worth checking, because a fair share of the national listings above the map are booking operations rather than locksmiths: they field the call, shave a margin off it and pass the address along, and the gap between the phone quote and the final bill is where that margin hides. Here the figure said on the call is the figure repeated on the receipt.
How long have you been working Fremont, Newark and Union City?+
The business has run here since 2014, on the same trade the whole time: lockouts, rekeys, hardware replacement, storefront and warehouse doors, safes and car keys. Harpreet Sandhu, who leads the bench, has eighteen years across these three cities behind him. What the years actually buy is recognition — the dropped frames in the older Centerville rentals, the century-old mortise cases in Niles, the aluminum shopfronts along Fremont Blvd, the makes off Auto Mall Pkwy that no aftermarket tool will program. Most of that gets named while you are still on the phone rather than discovered at your door.
Is there anywhere in the three cities I can drop a lock off?+
No, and it was never the plan. A fixed address in a service area shaped like this one means choosing which of the three cities gets to be near it, and it means you driving somewhere at the worst moment of your week. The bench rides in the van instead, so key cutting, cylinder pinning, safe work and fob programming all happen at your curb, inside the visit that began with your call.
How do I know the technician at the curb is really yours?+
Because his name and his photograph reached you before he did. The text sent at dispatch carries both along with the arrival window, and comparing that photo to the face on your step costs ten seconds and settles it. If the two do not match, you owe nobody an apology: send him off and call the number back. The van and the receipt should carry the same business name you dialed, and those are worth a glance as well.
What happens if the lock will not open without damage?+
You will hear about it before a tool goes near it. House deadbolts, apartment cylinders, aluminum storefront latches and car doors come open without a mark in the large majority of cases and keep working afterward, and a floor safe is more often walked open on the dial than drilled. Where a cylinder is seized, broken inside, or secure enough to beat picking, the technician puts the tools down and lays out what a replacement costs, what else might be tried and what each route is worth — then the choice is yours. The price fixed on the call holds either way.
One call, one price, anywhere in the Tri-City area
Calls answered 24/7. The number confirmed on the call is the number on your receipt, with the $89 service call credited toward the work.