Installed a new OEM lock mated to work with my truck's fob key to protect my full-use spare OEM wheel.

[21st Century Truck]

Starting today, I have a full regular OEM 20-inch wheel + tire mounted in the spare wheel underbody hoist, and a new Ford OEM spare wheel lock that protects access to this full-use spare, without yet another key to lose. My temp use spare wheel is for sale, listed elsewhere on the forum.

Several weeks ago on a sunny weekend, just because I had the time, I swapped my OEM regular wheel + tire with the OEM limited-use temporary spare wheel & tire. I thus confirmed the OEM regular 20-inch wheel + tire does fit inside the Lightning's spare wheel mount.

Afterwards, having by a lucky accident come into free possession of a regular OEM tire, I found and bought a matching OEM 20-inch wheel on EBay for a total of $300 or so. Then I had my local friendly Ford dealer's service guy order the new-style spare wheel lock and arrange its center-pattern tumblers to fit my truck's center-cut fob key pattern.

The new Ford spare tire lock + the tumbler work cost a total of just under $200 (in my case, a bit less with some FordPass points thrown in and other negotiated discounts). The service tech had to hunt around for two days before he found out from Ford Corporate that yes, a new-style spare wheel lock can indeed be ordered and then tumbler-arranged to work with the center-cut fob keys of our particular Lightning trucks... so it can indeed be done. The selling point for me with adding this mod is to keep my Lightning-related keys to just its OEM fob center-cut key.

The new design spare wheel lock, although it has a circlip on its back end like older Ford spare wheel locks, is now permanently affixed to its bumper trim fitting, so popping its back circlip off with a flathead screwdriver like countless youtube videos show, will (supposedly) not allow this new-style lock to just fall out of its plastic bumper housing and unlock the access hole... meaning, my now full-size OEM spare wheel appears to be decently protected against itchy hands.

Hope this is useful info for others here.

Here are the two part numbers:
RAMZ-1A380-A Kit - L $78.00
ML3Z-1543262-A Cylinder $115.00


Pics are attached.

BTW - the newest lock does snap into its black plastic trim piece but also, unfortunately, can be pushed / snapped out of it when the circlip retainer is removed.

I solved this by doping the whole steel butt end where that retainer lives, with black Liquid Tape.

Now, to pop that key retainer off will take a dedicated effort and likely a few head-scratching minutes... more than enough thief frustration time for my goals with this lock. Of course, I (we) can also use harder stuff like JB Weld and / or tech epoxy to keep that circlip on the lock.

 

[Ricks Lightning]

Part number and photo would help. Dealers are clueless to it's existence.

Rick

 

[21st Century Truck]

Part number and photo would help. Dealers are clueless to it's existence.

Rick

True. My oversight.

Here are the two part numbers:
RAMZ-1A380-A Kit - L $78.00
ML3Z-1543262-A Cylinder $115.00

Pics = tomorrow.

 

[MountainAlive]

From just the title I thought for a second that you somehow rigged this up so that pressing the unlock button on your fob then unlocked the spare tire lock. Lol. But I see this is a key cylinder mating to the main key. I think when I bought my 2023 the dealer gave me the cylinder lock foe the spare but I of course lost it in the paperwork shuffling. But I don’t recall seeing a separate key for it, so I just assumed it would match the door lock key.

 

[RickLightning]

I'm not getting this "new-style" thing at all. My 2022 came with a lock (they were eliminated in 2023), and it's keyed to the truck, just like my 2013 was. I can't imagine paying $200 for what is a easily disabled item.

 

[21st Century Truck]

True. My oversight.

Here are the two part numbers:
RAMZ-1A380-A Kit - L $78.00
ML3Z-1543262-A Cylinder $115.00

Pics = tomorrow.

Pics are attached.

BTW - the newest lock does snap into its black plastic trim piece but also, unfortunately, can be pushed / snapped out of it when the circlip retainer is removed.

I solved this by doping the whole steel butt end where that retainer lives, with black Liquid Tape.

Now, to pop that key retainer off will take a dedicated effort and likely a few head-scratching minutes... more than enough thief frustration time for my goals with this lock. Of course, I (we) can also use harder stuff like JB Weld and / or tech epoxy to keep that circlip on the lock.

 

[21st Century Truck]

From just the title I thought for a second that you somehow rigged this up so that pressing the unlock button on your fob then unlocked the spare tire lock. Lol. But I see this is a key cylinder mating to the main key. I think when I bought my 2023 the dealer gave me the cylinder lock foe the spare but I of course lost it in the paperwork shuffling. But I don’t recall seeing a separate key for it, so I just assumed it would match the door lock key.

AFAIK the older Ford F150 trucks had a skeleton key that might have matched the original purchaser's keyring key... that skeleton key lived (usually) in the console or the glovebox and often got thrown away over time.

I wanted to ensure that my practically never-used yet functional fob key will work on this new OEM lock. The service tech at 1st didn't think it could be ordered... eventually he found out that it could (with tumbler adjustment at the dealership after arrival) and that's why I decided to go for it.

BTW I am lot and likely never will be a PAAK user. I have three fobs, one a 2d spare from my old Mach E, and all electronically keyed to the Lightning. One fob lives in a secure storage box in its own Faraday bag, somewhere on my truck.

 

[astrand1]

I'm not getting this "new-style" thing at all. My 2022 came with a lock (they were eliminated in 2023), and it's keyed to the truck, just like my 2013 was. I can't imagine paying $200 for what is a easily disabled item.

Yeah it’s not new. It’s the same thing that the 21-22 trucks came with. Seems like that center area needs a retainer or something to keep it from coming out.

 

[21st Century Truck]

Yeah it’s not new. It’s the same thing that the 21-22 trucks came with. Seems like that center area needs a retainer or something to keep it from coming out.

The "new" according to Ford Service people is a redesigned trim piece (and maybe a redesigned lock cylinder bezel??) that together are supposed to make it harder to push the lock cylinder out of the trim ring when they are both on the vehicle, even when the rear circlip is pulled off the locking cylinder.

When I tried it, I was still able to push the lock cylinder out of the trim ring, albeit with a notable push-snap. Hence, my Liquid Tape doping trick to make the rear circlip much harder to wedge off the rear of the lock cylinder.

AFAIK the older Ford spare tire locks just slid in & out of the smooth-walled trim ring. This is per others' information as the only other pickup truck I ever had was an old GMC truck back in the day.

N ow, is this a new improved item from the 2022 model? ...or from the 2018 model? ...or from (you pick the model year)? The Ford service folks think so... and anyway it doesn't materially alter the continuing need to hide or to mechanically block the rear circlip on the locking cylinder, despite Ford's evolutionary improved design.

 

[Aminorjourney]

For what it's worth, I did the same thing with my 2023 F150 Lightning, because my original F150 Lightning had it.

As I understand it, you have two options (or certainly did). You can buy a lock for the spare wheel holder that's completely different to the key that came with your truck (a part I think is cheaper) - Ford SKU: RAMZ1A380A - Or you can go with the ML3Z-1543262-A - which is the one you have to 'build' to be identical to your key fob.

I used the latter, and had no issues making it, although you should consider how you're going to secure the top of the lock (because you're likely to not have the special tool Ford uses).

 

[21st Century Truck]

For what it's worth, I did the same thing with my 2023 F150 Lightning, because my original F150 Lightning had it.

As I understand it, you have two options (or certainly did). You can buy a lock for the spare wheel holder that's completely different to the key that came with your truck (a part I think is cheaper) - Ford SKU: RAMZ1A380A - Or you can go with the ML3Z-1543262-A - which is the one you have to 'build' to be identical to your key fob.

I used the latter, and had no issues making it, although you should consider how you're going to secure the top of the lock (because you're likely to not have the special tool Ford uses).

Yeah exactly... the well-meaning Service Tech offered the "separate key" option because he literally didn't know about the "rekey" option... which is the one I insisted on. With our current fobs and their hidden spare keys, there was no way I'd have gone for a loose indy key.

 

[detansinn]

I don't see the ROI here. The lockset costs nearly as much as the spare and is easy to defeat. Most people assume that the cover is covering a lock anyway.

 

[21st Century Truck]

I don't see the ROI here. The lockset costs nearly as much as the spare and is easy to defeat. Most people assume that the cover is covering a lock anyway.

Ummm... my spare wheel is a full-size OEM cast wheel, and my spare tire is a full-size OEM full-use tire.
This is why I made the lockset not quite as easy to defeat as another such Ford truck lockset, as described above.

My ROI calculation is actually not about specific financial loss, but a capability loss that might go unnoticed until I need this equipment, usually in a pinch.

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