r/Locksmith • u/Sad_Journalist3328 • 4d ago

I am NOT a locksmith. Assa Abloy is garbage

/r/AssaAbloy/comments/1x7epqe/why_i_think_assa_abloy_locks_are_garbage_and_the/

Dont buy!

0 Upvotes

27% Upvoted

8 comments sorted by

7

u/Cantteachcommonsense Actual Locksmith 4d ago

What was the model of the lock? How old is the lock? There are a ton of locks under the Assa umbrella.

7

u/hotbutteredtoast 4d ago

There's an assa abloy subreddit?!

5

u/LockLeisure 4d ago edited 3d ago

Ya'll charge by weight over there!!!? 80 euros per 10 grams. Welp time to update the inventory to unit locks and by the pound.

Oh you want a cheap defiant lock on your door, hell nah, unit lock, that will be $1215! Sorry, it's by weight.

3

u/Sad_Journalist3328 4d ago edited 4d ago

I hope your bike gears, car gears will be done of plastic, wood or aluminium... It is intentional planning for a failure. It is standard failure - all the shops knew about it.

What made me especially upset: One shop owner told: "Assa Abloy intentionally puts high price for failing parts - so you are make a choice to buy a new lock - not fix an old one."

2

u/LockLeisure 3d ago

Oh ya!? You want to play that game....with me!?

I hope the feeling of a thousand lost sneezes afflicts you.

2

u/JonCML Actual Locksmith 3d ago

They aren't private equity, but they use the exact same playbook. ASSA ABLOY makes roughly 2/3 of their revenue from aftermarket sales, so they deliberately price spare parts sky-high to force you into buying a brand-new unit instead of fixing it.

They are also aggressively replacing bulletproof mechanical locks that lasted decades with electromechanical/smart locks. Why? Because microchips, solenoids, and software naturally break or become obsolete in 5–10 years.

It’s predatory financial engineering. By restricting parts distribution and overpricing components, they trap you in a vicious, high-margin cycle of forced replacements and software subscriptions.

2

u/Puzzleheaded-Joke-97 3d ago

Sounds like a marketing opportunity for someone to make a mold and produce metal copies of parts that routinely fail.

Or publish the specs for people with 3D printers to make their own parts.

2

u/njb2990 3d ago

In the last 5yrs or so I've noticed a considerable price increase across Assa Abloy brands (corbin, norton, sargent, etc). I find it interesting that Allegion brands (VD, sch, rixon, etc) have increased in price but not nearly as aggressively.

Currently a corbin mortise lock body is just about twice the msrp of a schlage mortise lock body as an example, ~Δ$375. Norton 8501 costs almost as much as an LCN4040, ~Δ$150.