Getting locked out of your car is annoying. It’s frustrating, unexpected, but most of all – it’s expensive.

Every day, across the US people pay a quarter of a million dollars in locksmith fees after getting locked out of their cars. As a locksmith in Denver, I open about 5-10 cars a day. In fact – that’s mostly what I do, since the problem is so common. Yet when you’re locked out, you may have more options than you think to get back in. In this article, I’ll guide you through these options so you can know for sure whether you even need a locksmith. Using this step-by-step guide, you may be able to open it yourself.

Disclaimer: I do not take responsibility for any damage caused to your car or any car you try to open using this guide. I also don’t encourage you to open your car or any other car and I wrote this guide for informational reasons only. If you do decide to unlock a car, make sure you are the owner or you’ve been given permission by the owner. This guide is meant to help people who locked their keys in their cars and would like to try to unlock it themselves. I do not condone criminal activity of any kind.

Are You Really Locked Out?

First, make sure you’re actually locked out. This may sound silly but you’d be surprised how many times I’ve arrived to unlock a customer’s car… just to find out one of the car doors was unlocked.

Before you do anything else, check all the doors and make sure they’re all actually locked. Try the trunk too, it’s often overlooked and many times you can get back into the vehicle by folding the seats through the trunk.

Where Is Your Spare Key?

So you checked all the doors and the car is definitely locked. What’s next?

You may consider using your spare key, but this can be tricky depending on your situation. Is your spare key at home? How far are you? Do you have someone who can bring it over? If you’re in a hurry or far away from home, trying to open the car yourself or calling a locksmith may be your best choice.

An average locksmith fee for unlocking a vehicle is around $70, but it can go as high as $140 depending on your vehicle. And yet sometimes it’s still a better option than going through the hassle of rushing home to get the spare key. If your house keys are also locked in your vehicle, keep in mind it’s almost always cheaper to get your car unlocked by a locksmith, than your house.

You May Have Roadside Assistance (And don’t even know it)

But before you start prying your door open or call a locksmith, it’s possible that you have road side assistance coverage and you don’t even know it. If you have a comprehensive car insurance coverage, roadside assistance might be included.

Call your insurance emergency line and check before you call a locksmith. Some companies will send their own locksmith while others reimburse you for the locksmith’s fee. AAA membership also includes roadside assistance and even certain credit cards, so make sure you check all these options first.

Should You Call a Locksmith Or Open It Yourself?

After exploring the immediate options, you need to decide if you should call a locksmith or unlock your car on your own. Here are the main factors to consider:

1. Tools: Since you probably don’t have professional car opening tools, you’re going to have to improvise using tools you find around you. As I discuss more in depth later, you mainly need one tool to wedge the door slightly open, and another tool to reach into your car and unlock it from the inside. There are many tools you can use to achieve that, but if there is nothing you can use around you, you may have to call a locksmith after all.

2. Possible damage: Locksmiths use special tools that are made specifically for the purpose of opening locked cars. Using these tools makes it extremely easy to unlock almost any car without damaging it. When using improvised tools, especially if you’ve never done this before, you may cause some damage to your car. The amount and severity of the damage depend on the tools you’ll use and how complicated the car you’re trying to unlock is. The most common types of damage I’ve seen are tears to the door’s rubber seal and small scratches to the door’s plastic panel and frame. In rarer cases you can end up with a slightly bent door or a broken locking mechanism.

3. Price: The fee to get your car unlocked can vary from $50 to $150, depending on your car, time of day, and location. But as I discuss later, with a little bit of shopping around you can almost always find someone who will do it for 50-60 dollars. If you have absolutely no money or don’t mind potential minor damage to your car, you should try to unlock it yourself, but if you find a cheap locksmith and have a bit of money to spare, doing it yourself might not be worth the hassle.

Calling a Locksmith (And getting the best price possible)

Just like any other service, some locksmiths are cheaper than others. With the right tools, unlocking a vehicle is pretty simple and doesn’t require much skill, so the cheapest locksmith is going to do the job just as well as the most expensive one.

So how do you find the cheapest price? You shop around. Call 5 different locksmiths and ask them for an EXACT total price to unlock a vehicle, including service call and labor. If they tell you they have to see the car to determine the price or that they can only price the work on site, cross them out and move on to the next one.

Any locksmith should be able to give you an exact total price over the phone. After you got a few prices, have the cheapest locksmith come over.

Should You Break a Window?

You should only consider this option as a last resort in an emergency. First, getting a new window will definitely cost more than even the most expensive locksmith and second – you’re much more likely to hurt yourself in the process.

If you can’t unlock the car by yourself and don’t have the money to pay a locksmith, try your very best to find someone to borrow the money from. If your child or pet is locked in the vehicle, call the police or the fire department and they will come immediately as this is treated as an emergency. I recommend breaking the window only in situations that are potentially life threatening like if your child or pet is locked in the car on a very hot day, or if you’re locked out and it’s freezing cold outside.

Naturally, if there is someone in the car, always break the farthest window away from them. Car windows are made of protective glass and are not easy to break. If you have a tool like a hammer or a screwdriver it would make the job easier, if you don’t – look for a medium size rock and aim for the center of the window. Make sure you do it extremely carefully as the window will usually shatter into small pieces.

Slim Jims And Tennis Balls

Back in the day most cars could be easily unlocked with a slim jim – a long, thin piece of metal you would slide into the side of the door and pull up to engage the door’s manual button. As car locking mechanisms became more advanced, this method became harder and less effective.

As most cars nowadays have electronic wiring going through the door, using a slim jim can also cause a significant damage to the car. There are many theoretical methods to unlock vehicles. Some of them work on specific cars, but most of them don’t work at all (like the tennis ball method). As a locksmith who has unlocked thousands of cars, I can tell you that the only proven way to unlock every vehicle is by unlocking it from the inside as I describe below.

How to Unlock Your Car? (4 Steps)

To unlock a vehicle without its key, you need to unlock it as if you are inside of the car – using either the electronic unlock button or the manual button on one of the doors. The main idea is that you need to find a way to create a tiny bit of space between the door and the frame so you can insert a tool into the car and use it to push or pull one of the unlock buttons from the outside.

Step 1: Locating the unlock button in your car

Most cars have 2 types of unlock buttons. You probably already know where the ones in your car are. The electronic unlock button is usually located on the driver side door’s panel and one click on it will unlock all the doors at once.

The manual buttons are located on each door and unlocking one of them will unlock that specific door. Old cars with no electronic locking mechanism don’t have an automatic unlock button, they can only be unlocked by engaging the manual unlock button on the door, or by using a tool to pull the handle from the inside.

Look into your car and locate the unlock buttons. See what kind there are, if they require pulling or pressing on. Decide which button would be the easiest to reach with the tools you have.

Step 2: Wedging the door and the frame apart

Now you need to create some space between the door and the frame of the car that will allow you to slide a tool in and click the unlock button. You want to create the minimum amount of space that will allow you to move the tool comfortably inside of the vehicle.

This is critical because prying the door open puts a lot of pressure on the door and the locking mechanism and too much of it will either bend the door or break the locking mechanism altogether. The most common household tools you can use as a wedge are rubber or plastic door stoppers or a big flathead screwdriver, but look for anything thin enough you can slide between the door and the frame that will give you that inch of space.

Once you’ve found your wedge of choice, carefully slide it in at the top part of the door, as far from the hinges as possible. This is the part that’ll give you most space because it has the least amount of pressure on it from the hinges and locking mechanism. Try to push your wedge beyond the rubber seal so you can see the tip of it sticking out inside of the car. At this point you should have about an inch of space between the door and the frame.

Which door should you try to open?

Which door you should open depends mostly on whether you’re targeting the electronic unlock button or the manual one. If you’re going for the electronic unlock button, you’ll have to use the driver’s door because that’s where the button is located. (Except in very few cars where it’s located in the middle console). If your car doesn’t have an electronic button or your tool can’t reach it, you should go for the driver side if you’re right handed and for the passenger side if you’re left handed. This is pretty intuitive, you need to hold the reach tool with your dominant hand to make it easier to aim and hit the button.

Step 3: Sliding a tool into the car and pushing the unlock button

All you need to do at this point is to find a thin, long tool, slide it into your vehicle and use it to push or pull the unlock button. The best household tool for this task is usually a wire coat hanger since it’s long, thin and can be bent according to the unlock button’s location in your car.

Depending on the tool you use, you may need to move the wedge to different areas in the door and try to hit the unlock button from different angels. If you don’t have a wire coat hanger, try to find a small branch that has a bit of an angle to it. It must be firm enough, so it won’t break when you use it to push the unlock button. Usually it’s easier to aim for the electronic unlock button, but if your tool can’t reach it, go for the manual one. If your car has a FOB and it’s in a visible place in the car (like on the seat), try to aim for the unlock button on the FOB. Remember, you’re using improvised tools, so you have to play around with the different options until you find the one your tool can reach.

Once you hit the unlock button and hear the beautiful sound of your car unlocking, you’ll be tempted to immediately pull the handle and open the door. Don’t do it! Instead do this first:

Step 4: Pulling the reach tool and the wedge out before opening the door

This step is important and often overlooked. With the wedge separating the door and the frame there is a lot of pressure on the door’s locking mechanism. If you open the door before you release the pressure, the locking mechanism can break. Fixing it will cost so much that you’ll wish you had called a locksmith. So before opening the door, take a second to pull the reach tool out of the car. Then pull out the wedge. The door will return to its normal position and only then should you pull the handle and open it.

That’s it! You’ve done it. You’ve unlocked your own car (hopefully). Now get your car key copied so next time you have a spare and send us your CV – we’re hiring. 🙂

If this article helped you or you have any questions or comments, let me know directly through our Twitter or Facebook page, I read and answer every message.

• How to unlock a car
• Keys locked in car
• Locked out of Car
• Unlock car