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Lowe

Locked out of car

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So, the other week I got locked out of my 86. It was a bit of a perfect storm of circumstances, and I put this here as a tale of experience so hopefully it will serve as a timesaver for someone who finds themselves in the same situation in the future...

So a bit of context. Car was parked on an incline, with the nose raised - this meant the doors were wanting to close with the aid of gravity. I'd unlocked the car, but mistakenly only pressed unlock once, rather than twice to do both doors. I opened the drivers door, put my wallet/phone/keys on the drivers seat leaving the door open, then went around to open the passenger door for my sons, so we can start the game of trying to get a 5 year old into the back seat!

As I got to the passenger door and tried to open it, the drivers door started to close of its own accord. It stopped on the first part of the 'latch', i.e half open. I tried to open the passenger door and found it was locked. I went back to the drivers door and to my horror found that the door would not open. The window was still slightly retracted, but the door handle would not engage and so the door wouldn't open. Even more annoying was that I was blocking someone in...

A friend and I got a piece of packaging banding, made a loop and managed to hook the interior door handle. However, despite being able to fully retract the handle the door would still not open. By now I'd already phoned my wife who was bringing the spare key over so had nothing to lose so I did what didn't make sense. I closed the door fully, and the window went back up into the closed position. Tried the door and... it opened!

So there you go - if you find yourself with a door on half latch that's not opening and your keys are in the car, close the door and then the handle will work. Save yourself the 50 minutes of trying to use the interior handle! :D

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I had mishap with autolocking doors of flat two decades ago. From then on i made it habbit to put all keys on small chain and just attach key set to my pants. "If i have my pants on, i have my keys in pocket with me" :)

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pro tip; the car will not lock with keys inside it. if you leave the keys on the seat and close the door then try pressing on the handle where you'd normally lock the car and it will beep at you which is to warn you the keys are still in the car and that it wont lock

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Another tip - if by chance you want engine running AND lock the car (such as in winter, to heat up/to thaw snow/ice or to warm up in advance prior having a go in it this time in comfort, but not wishing someone breaking in), then with running engine 1) lock passenger door from inside, 2) lock driver's door with mechanical key.

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Also you can change the locking so that you don't have to press twice to unlock both doors. I think it's sit in the car unlocked with the doors closed and press both buttons. If that doesn't work open the drivers door and try...

Sent from my STF-L09 using Tapatalk

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