Winter morning and low temperatures often lead to the freezing of locks on cars. Bear this in mind and keep the defrosting tools near. The lock can be frozen so that it makes the unlocking of the door impossible, or the door itself may be frozen, so that they cannot be opened.
How to unfreeze the lock on the car
- Gently try to open every door to see that the door is least frozen. Try those doors that were most exposed to the sun, or that they faced east. If the latch handle is raised, pull gently but firmly toward you to see if the ice from the door frame yields.
- Wearing thick gloves firmly press your palms on places where the ice is clung. If the door discounts, ice on those parts should be cracking. Try tapping the frozen parts around the doorframe with your palms. If the ice breaks, try to remove the remains of broken ice.
- In the case that you cannot open any car doors, try the trunk. If the rear doors are not under ice, go through the trunk on the driver’s seat to the inside and try to open the vehicle door from the inside
- Start the engine and let the car warm up a few minutes before you try to open the frozen doors on the inside. Try avoiding use of force. Use of force could damage the vehicle door.
- Conduct extension cable from the nearest plug in order to try a hair dryer to thaw frozen door locks. Move the hairdryer closer to the top of the door frame and gently move the hairdryer following line where the door frame combines with the rest of the vehicle. Using your hands, remove pieces of broken ice.
Use heated key
- Put on the gloves and hold the key to rear part. Preheat the key body with a lighter.
- Test heated key into the frozen lock. Gently turn the key in the lock in order to help the process of defrosting the locks.
- Repeat the process to re-heat the key if it has gotten cold. Continue to play the hot key in the lock frozen until it thaws enough to be able to turn the key and unlock the lock.