How to Open Car Doors

Going beneath the Window

Straighten a wire hanger. This method will work best for vehicles with a vertical manual lock—meaning a lock that you pull up to unlock or push down to lock. These locks are usually at the top of the door panel just inside the window. This method requires a thin but rigid tool that you can feed between the weatherstripping around the bottom of the window and the glass itself. A wire coat hanger works well, but you must straighten it first. A universal unlock tool or a “slim jim” also work in this case if you’re prone to locking your keys in your car and want to keep one around for future occurrences.

Bend a hook into one end of the hanger. Though the hanger mostly needs to be straight, you will need to keep a hook bent into one end. This hook will need to catch on the lever arm of the locking mechanism inside the car door. The hook should be roughly two or three inches long.

Feed the hanger down between the window and the weatherstripping. In order to reach the locking mechanism lever in the door, you must feed the hook end of the hanger into the small space between the bottom of the window and the weatherstripping the helps seal and cushion the window in the door. You will need to feed the hanger down several inches, and you will feel when the end of the hook slips down past the window.

Turn the hanger to point the hook toward the inside of the car. The mechanism lever will run parallel to the car door, so you’ll need to turn the hanger close to 90 degrees to make sure the hook faces perpendicular to the lever and can catch it.

Fish the hook around to find the lever. This part is not an exact science and depends on the specific car. You will have to fish the hook around inside the workings of the door to find the lever. The lever will likely be slightly behind the actual lock placement, so use the hanger within a few inches of the manual lock tab instead of directly next to it. You will see the manual lock lever shake and jiggle when you make contact with the lever arm, so keep fishing around until you see it start to move.

Lift up on the lever arm. Once you feel that the hook in the hanger is around the lever arm and you see the manual lock moving, then you simply need to jiggle and lift up on the hook to finish unlocking the door. Since the lever arm is stronger than the hanger, it may bend your hook out of place. Pull the hanger out, reshape the hook, and reinsert to at the same spot. It may take several tries, but as long as you see the manual lock jiggling, then you know you’re in the right spot.

Call a locksmith. If you cannot seem to get any leverage by going beneath the window, you can always try one of the other methods, or you can simply call a locksmith. With the professional assortment of tools a locksmith will have available, they’ll have you back in your car within minutes.

Using a Cord with a Slipknot

Get a long piece of paracord or a long shoelace. This method is also meant for vehicles with vertical manual locks that are just inside the window and which you must pull up in order to unlock the vehicle. Start by getting a long, thin piece of paracord or even a long shoelace. If you use a shoelace, then it will likely have to come off a pair of boots because it will need to be at least approximately three feet in length depending on your car doors.

Tie a slipknot in the center of the cord. For this method, you will work the cord inside the vehicle and tighten the slipknot over the manual lock to pull it up, so you will need to make the slipknot in the cord before feeding it into the vehicle. If you do not know how to tie a slipknot, visit How to Make a Slip Knot to learn how. You want to leave roughly two-to-three inches in the slipknot in order to make it easier for the loop to fit over the lock before you tighten it.

Feed the cord into the doorjamb. Start at the top corner of the door and pull at it to make a bit of space between the door and the rubber seal, and then push the slipknot portion of the cord between the door and the frame.

Work the cord down into the vehicle. You will probably find it easiest to get the slipknot down to the lock by using a sort of sawing motion to work the cord down. Tease one end of the cord down toward where the door handle and tease the other end of the cord toward the side mirror, and then work them back and forth to pull the knot lower. You may need to use something with a little bit of a wedge to it such as a door stop to hold the corner while you push the cord between the door and the frame. Make sure you only actually pull on one end of the cord at a time. If you pull on both, you’ll just tighten the knot prematurely.

Position the slipknot loop over the manual lock. After you’ve worked the cord down far enough, you will need to position it above the lock and with the loop facing the correct direction. Since the door will force the cord slightly deeper into the car than the position of the lock, you can twist the cord once it’s above the lock to swing the loop over it.

Pull the slipknot tight on the lock. Once you have the slipknot in place over the manual lock, you can tighten the slipknot. Pull both ends of the cord to tighten the knot, but make sure to pull slowly so that the loop doesn’t redirect off the lock as it tightens.

Unlock the door. Once you have the knot nice and tight over the lock, you can simply pull up on the cord to pull the lock up and unlock the door. This is especially easy for vehicles with manual locks that have a concave shape. If your lock has a smoother shape, you will have to pull up at an angle rather than directly up in order to keep the knot from slipping off the lock.

Call a locksmith. If you cannot seem to get the cord past the doorjamb and none of the other methods will work for your vehicle, you can always call a locksmith.

Going around the Doorjamb

Straighten a wire hanger. Since this method involves extending the hanger into the actual vehicle, it tends to work better for vehicles with power door locks or a lock that automatically unlocks when you pull the interior door handle. You will need a long rigid tool that won’t bend under a bit of tension in order to reach in and either press the unlock button or pull the door handle. The most common household tool will likely be a wire hanger after you straighten it. A rib from an umbrella or a long wire from a wire basket will work as well. You can also buy a specific tool kit for this method online, which consists of an inflatable bag, a wedge, and a rigid tool. If you are prone to locking your keys in your car, it could prove to be a good investment.

Snip off the twisted section at each end. Use a pair of wire cutters to snip off the twisted section at either end where the hanger came together. This section is typically to difficult to straighten completely and is hard to slip into the doorjamb. Cut as close to the base of the twisted section as possible in order to retain as much length in the wire as you can.

Shape the wire hanger. Make a small hook with the end of the wire hanger if you will be opening the inside door handle itself. Make a small circle if you will be opening a vertical lock or pressing an unlock button. Make sure that the hook is large enough to grasp the handle, and that the circle can just barely fit over the button so that it snags when you pull it up.

Pry open the car door slightly. You need to get something into the car doorjamb just enough to give yourself some leverage. You can use an inflatable pump wedge, which is a small inflatable bag that safely creates an opening in your car door or window. If you do not have access to an inflatable bag, you can use any sort of tapered rubber material. Two or three door stops will also work well if you insert them a bit at a time to get a good wedge. Use rubber to prevent scratching your car's paint. Make sure to pry under the weather stripping and only pry enough to insert the wire through. Leave the object you inserted in the door jamb as you complete the next step.

Work the wedge in deeper. Once you have something with a bit of leverage behind the door, you need to pry a bit more to open the space wider. Even if you used an inflatable pump wedge, you should still have one or two actual rubber wedges or even wooden ones with plastic guards. You will have to work these wedges deeper into the jamb until you have enough space to insert your wire hanger.

Insert the wire through the gap. If you are trying to open the door handle, you should insert the wire horizontally through the side of the door. If you are trying to unlock a vertical button, you should insert the wire downward vertically from above the door. If this proves too difficult on the driver’s side door, you can always try the passenger side as well since most modern vehicles with power door locks will have a control on the passenger side as well. Be careful not to scratch the paint on your car as you complete this step.

Use the hook to grab the door handle. If opening the handle itself, direct the wire onto the door handle and grab onto the handle with the hook you bent into the wire. The hook will usually be pointing down and slightly toward the inside of the car in order to achieve the best angle.

Use the circle to press the unlock button. If pushing a button or pulling up on a vertical lock, direct the wire from the top of the window toward the button and perform the necessary action. For a button, simply press down with the end of the wire until the doors unlock. For a vertical lock, push the loop you created in the end of your wire down over the lock and pull up until the car unlocks. It is important that the loop is just barely wide enough to slide over the top of the vertical lock so that you can pull it back up.

Open your newly unlocked car door and hit the road!

Call a locksmith. If the door to your vehicle proves too difficult to pry open to get the hanger inside with enough room to maneuver it, then you may simply need to call a locksmith. They will have professional tools to get you back inside your vehicle in no time.