To be honest some of the latches in my internal doors date from before than
war, and with normal careful lubrication seem to work just fine. I had to
remove a couple to get them back working though, mostly muck and gunge. The
usual problem with older locks is loss of the keys and nobody seems to be
able to create the new ones.
When I had to give up on the kitchen door latch due to corrosion inside, I
found that the plate sizes and pitch of the two holes, and the handle to
door edge were slightly different needing more door surgery than I had
intended.
Brian

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The Sofa of Brian Gaff...

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"Caecilius" wrote in message
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Many of the mortice latches on my internal doors are not as smooth as
I'd like. I think they're all about 20 years old, so I'm planning to
replace them all at once rather than just replacing the bad ones.

I know there's a a nasty failure mode with these latches where the
die-cast insides can fail leaving you locked in or out, and I'm keen
to avoid cheap-and-nasty brands that might do this if possible.

There are a large range of prices at screwfix - from 99p each to over
5 pounds. Is price any indication of quality with these sorts of
items? I'm wondering whether it's best to buy a branded one like
Smith and Locke (which maybe just a B&Q / Screwfix brand anyway) or
just go with the unbranded cheap ones and maybe replace them every few
years.