It happens more frequently that you ever thought, you just leave your car keys inside you vehicle and even you are completely sure that you haven’t locked the door, you discover when trying to open it that the door is mysteriously locked.
If that situation is taking place more frequently than usual, it is time to check what is going on with a different solution whether the car door is locked and it won’t close or if it is locked and it won’t open. As complicated as it might sound, in the following lines there are some solutions to implement when this situation is happening to your car doors.
Possible Reasons for the Car Door Lock to be stuck in the Lock Position
Before getting into the solution of this situation, you have to find out the possible causes that make your car door stuck in the lock position. At the precise moment you know the reasons of this odd situation, then the right solution will come out and the problem will be vanquished at once. Just be careful to find out the right origin of the troublesome situation, since there is a particular solution for each origin presented; there is no magical solution to get rid of all the situations in the same way. Some of the issues that originate the Car Door lock stuck can be originated by the following factors:
- Broken Connections
There must some troubles with the internal or external connections of the door to the door latch. If there is not an appropriate connection of your door handle, lock cylinder, or interior locking post or switch to the car latch, the chance for the door to remain stuck in the lock position is truly high.
To deal with this situation, all the broken connections need to be repaired by opening the door and work on the connections that failed. Most likely, there is going to be the need of replace the parts of the connectors since they could be completely damaged and new ones are required immediately.
- A Rusted, Grimed, or Jammed Lock.
There can be several reasons why your car door keeps in the lock position, and one of them is the possible obstruction of the keyhole in your car door lock. This could be caused by the common piece of broken key in the lock, but dust, rust and dirt can also be part of the obstruction of the key way
Before substituting the lock, be certain that nothing is clogging the keyway. If there is something in the way of the key, start lubricating the lock until it is totally unblock thanks to removal of the dirt, rust, or grime accumulated. If the door continues to be stuck in the lock position, then something else is clogging the lock and the removal of that object is necessary to provide a solution for this situation.
- Total Damage of the Lock Structure
This is one of the extreme scenarios you will ever find, since this situation involves an accident as the origin of the problem. A fender bender, a crash, or a hard slamming of the door are three of the main accidents that lead to a considerable damage to the door latch and makes the lock to remain stuck in the lock placement. When this is the case, the help of a professional is required immediately to provide the proper solution.
When the stuck locked door is impossible to close, the solution is very easy to perform; but this particular situation gets worsen when the door cannot be open. At the time the door is finally open, it is necessary to check the door latch in detail and see of it can be repaired. The main issue with structural damage is that the fixing of the latch and the locking system is difficult to achieve, and replacement of them is always required in this specific scenario.
How to Open the Car Door
The big trouble when the car door is impossible to open because of the lock stuck is that the solution to that condition needs a total access to the lock system inside the door. The checking of the inner section of the door latch has to be done when all the possible attempts to open it have proved fruitless; try all the possible methods to open the door including manual manipulation of the lock mechanism, your remote control, or even using the lock key.
If none of them prove to be successful, then you have to remove the panels inside the door to get access to the lock system and start checking and manipulating it until you get the lock unstuck and finally opens the door. An extensive revision has to be performed after the lock is in the open position, in order to avoid the repetition of this sort of situation in the future
What to do to avoid this situation once again
After the problem has been solved, you need to be extremely careful to avoid its return. Just remember to keep the lock system always clean and lubricated, preferably a dry lubricator since oil-based lubricants are magnets to dust and dirt making the trouble to surface in the close future. It is about rust or grime built around the lock mechanism, a thorough cleaning of it is required and after that lubricate the cleaned parts to extend their useful life span.
In the case of a broken part, there are two choices to be considered, each one of them are dependable on the budget you have foreseen to your car repairs. If you are on tight budget, the gluing of parts is the best solution at hand; but you have to be certain that the glue you are using is the right one according to the characteristic of the part. There is a different sort of glue when it is related to plastic parts and another for metal ones; and joining metal and plastic requires a special kind of glue to put them together. The different types of glue have to be present in you toolbox for any of the cases mention above.
Now, if you have a very good budget destined to car fixing or other house emergencies, there is no doubt that the replacement of the damaged mechanism is going to be an easy solution to achieve.