Dorman924-703 Ignition Lock Cylinder Compatible with Select Models

My new Dorman 924-703 Ignition Lock Cylinder is working perfectly. It took a while to remove the old ignition case and lock cylinder from my 2000 Jeep Cherokee. I had beaten on it for years to get my key to turn. I didn't know I could replace it myself and been stalling to call a locksmith or dealership. I Googled it, learned I could buy one from Amazon, and ended up buying this. The numbers on my old tumblers were hard to read but I used the magnifier app on my android phone. I didn't know the 2 brass pins came out and there was a spring behind each. I also didn't know there was a small spring behind each tumbler. This new one only has 6 tumblers with springs installed. I had to reuse 2 springs from my old cylinder, but they were in good shape. This was really easy to do but I had to wipe off the old tumblers first because of dirt and grime build up on them. It took 10 minutes approximately to install the 8 new tumblers with springs behind each into the new cylinder. 10 minutes of reading time prior to the work. If you go to their web site and download their pdf file, it is a lot easier to read if you have vision problems. It was probably 45 minutes total installation time counting the trips back and forth getting a flashlight and flathead screwdriver to pry my old cylinder out. Another trip was to change out my transition glasses to non-transition glasses because it was sunny out and I couldn't see inside my jeep with my transitions on. My new ignition switch is working perfectly, and it was a cool little job to install it. Go slowly, watch for springs, draw cylinder on paper showing the placement of the 8 tumblers, & label the number of each tumbler from your old cylinder. Build your new one using your tumbler drawing. The new tumblers must go in exactly the same order for your existing key to work.

The product has worked perfectly, after watching a couple of YouTube videos replacing a cylinder ignition lock for a 2001 Jeep Cherokee sport I purchased and installed the new ignition cylinder lock. The product has worked perfectly. Just follow the instructions.

After a while of being able to tap the key with a hammer to get the ignition cylinder in my boxy Jeep Cherokee to turn, the cylinder stopped turning the key at all. If you can get the key in your cylinder to the run position, you can pop the old cylinder out; however, my cylinder was completely jammed.Where most guides tell you to depress the button on the bottom side of the cylinder keeping the cylinder in place (as part of the key removal process), I was able to drill that very piece to break it out. Once the stopper button piece was drilled out, I was able to get the cylinder out by pushing in that area with a screwdriver while pulling as much as I could grab of the cylinder.Once the old was out, programming the new key with the automated coding tool was pretty straightforward. It says you turn your existing key in the new cylinder once. A single turn means up to 180 degrees rotation, not 360 like I had initially been doing, lol.I then had some trouble with the auto coder in that some of the tumblers inside were not perfectly flush with the cylinder with the key inside. I blame this on my key being old and somewhat worn after 21 years of use. I just pried out the tumblers that weren't flush with very pokey tweezers.Then I ran into the issue of the plastic piece behind the tumbler being broken, part of the ignition switch actuator pin. See, I had managed to mess up the spring in the few days I was starting the jeep with a screwdriver, so basically, the system thought that a key was always inserted, meaning not only was there an annoying beeping any time the driver door was open, but I also wouldn't be able to lock the Cherokee with any electronic/remote means.My compromise was to bypass the key-in-cylinder detection altogether, though I could clearly just replace the ignition switch assembly. Be warned that this removes the safety feature preventing power locks while a key is present in the cylinder but the car is not started. This worked by simply removing some screws from the ignition switch rod (just requires the removal of three or four T10 I think security Torx screws, two by the cylinder and one or two on the other side of the steering wheel at the ignition switch wire harness). There's a couple of videos by some helpful YouTubers if a visual aid is needed.Anyways, there were two springs inside the actuator pin part. The springs basically pushed part of the actuator pin against the ignition cylinder, and keys compressing those springs indicates the presence of a key. In other words, if the springs were removed and part of the assembly (gold piece in OEM parts and Dorman part number 924-704) was kept in the non-compressed position, it would just no longer detect the presence of a key. This was a lot of words to be descriptive, but all I really did was remove the springs and put the pieces back in place without springs. My actuator rod plastic bit was broken, so I didn't even bother putting that in because I only needed the metal pieces for the ignition cylinder to work without key detection.But all in all, this fix was less than 60 dollars compared to buying from AutoZone, O'reilly, Advance Auto Parts, and other places for a minimum of 90 dollars. Had I purchased a pre-keyed cylinder instead, I would not have been able to use just 1 key for both the doors and the ignition without rekeying the 4 door cylinders and the trunk. Being a less than 60 dollar/30 minute fix (excluding a few hours on my end for drilling out the old cylinder, using a very old/worn key, and troubleshooting to find a solution for that key-always-detected problem), this product is definitely worth 5 stars.

The new lock cylinder came with 2 missing wafers and 2 missing springs. I called customer service and explained how the new cylinder was only loaded with 6 of 8 wafers and springs and that two was missing from my package. He told me that it was only supposed to come with 6 not 8 and the two other slots were not supposed to be used. I explained that the original cylinder has 8 and all the videos of this product shows it is supposed to have 8 and the even the new key is cut to use 8. I explained that I need the 2 missing springs in order to key it to my original key that has a chip in it in order to have the same security as the original cylinder. He told me it only needs one wafer to work and I'm just complaining. I should just use only the six. I told him that I wanted the full 8 so it minimized the chances of other keys turning my vehicle into the on position. He then said I should just get a man to do it for me because I'm incapable of understanding the mechanics.My boyfriend who was helping me with this project listened to the entire conversation. He immediately called and talked to Dorman and without any issues they said that yes the cylinder is supposed to come with 8 wafers and 8 springs preloaded in the new cylinder matched to the new key and that they cannot send out just the missing springs that we need to key it to the original key and said we should send it back for a replacement in order to get one with all 8 wafers and springs from the place where we bought it.Dorman customer service is only interested in helping you if you are a man. I assume that they think women cannot work on cars.Update: I received my second ignition cylinder and unfortunately it also came with missing parts. I now will have to build an ignition cylinder using the new cylinder and old parts from my broken cylinder. Was not expecting to pay as much as I did and still have to use 20 year old parts inside the new part to make it work.