They cover more kilometres than your car. You have them with you almost all the time – on holiday, at a family party, at work. In moments when your mind is blank, but also when things get really heated: your wife going into labour, dropping the kids off at school just before an important meeting with the boss, or after a blazing row with the family. Car keys have plenty of opportunities to get lost or… accidentally locked inside the car.
What should you do when this unpleasant scenario comes true? How do you minimise the damage? And how do you prevent it from happening in the first place?
Reach for the spare key
This is the simplest option, but it isn’t always possible. Especially if the spare set is at home and you’re hundreds of kilometres away. Some people hide a spare key under the car using a magnetic key box. That does help in the situation described, but it’s easy pickings for a thief. The underside of the car is one of the first places organised car-theft gangs check.
Ideally, someone you trust should bring you the spare keys. Otherwise you’re leaving a car with the keys locked inside it in a car park, which is a tempting opportunity for the wrong hands. Remember that if your car is stolen with the keys inside, the insurer won’t pay out!
Call a professional
This is a simple and safe solution, although it costs money. Having a car with the keys locked inside opened by a professional costs PLN 150-450 (depending on the location, the time of the call-out and the car model). It does, however, guarantee that the lock won’t be damaged, the windows will stay intact and the paintwork of your vehicle won’t suffer either.
DIY ways to open the car
What’s left when, for whatever reason, calling a professional and getting hold of the spare keys are both off the table?
If your car has double locking (i.e. when the doors are locked from the outside, they can still be opened from the inside), you have 2 options:
Find a gap
Check whether there is any gap at all between the window or door and the bodywork. If you find one, try to widen it, for example with an old card you don’t need. The opening should be big enough to feed through a long piece of wire with a hook on the end. Then use the wire to try to catch the lock pin or the door handle. It can help to aim for the handle of the opposite door (i.e. you prise open the left window/door and hook the wire onto the right-hand handle – you get a better view).
Use a slim jim
Using a penknife, remove the lower trim strip with the seal between the window and the door (mind the paintwork!). Then insert a hooked wire into that gap and feel for the lock lever. Some people can even manage it with a windscreen wiper!
If everything fails, all that’s left is to break a window. Be prepared for the cost of replacing the glass, which may come to more than a call to a professional who opens cars with keys locked inside.
2 important tips if you break a window to get into your car:
Don’t break the small triangular windows!
Although it may seem that this would reduce the damage, in reality it’s exactly the opposite. This small part gets broken extremely rarely, which makes it correspondingly more expensive.
Don’t break the driver’s window!
All the glass will end up on your seat, and you’re still planning to sit on it, right?
How to avoid locking your keys in the car?
Well, the method is only simple in theory: remember to take your keys with you whatever the circumstances.
Even apps that remind you about forgotten items, such as notiOne, only notify you about a forgotten item once the distance between your phone and the protected object reaches around 90 m. Unfortunately, that may mean you’ve already locked the keys in the car.
