How I Broke Into my Honda Civic

By kate on August 6th, 2010

The other day, I ended up at an outlet mall with my keys locked in my car, a 1992 Honda Civic, and needed a cheap way to get back into my car. Here’s the easy method I discovered.

Before I go any further, let me just say please don’t use this method on someone’s car without their permission. In addition, it’s a last-ditch technique, since it can damage your car’s weatherstripping. However, if you’re a Honda Civic owner like me and need to get into your car, feel free to give this a try.

Because I was at an outlet mall, my first thought was that wire hangers would be easy to come by. As I walked around the stores, though, I observed that all their hangers were the plastic kind. I was about to give up on this approach when I walked past a kitchen store. I thought that there MUST be something in a kitchen store I could use, and lo and behold, I was right.

For the low price of $2.49, I was the new owner of four metal barbecue skewers, one of which I used for my own purposes. I used the metal on a trash can to bend the skewer into a hook shape like this:

After a few false starts, here’s the method that worked. I slipped the skewer into the side of the window (either front passenger or driver’s side will work).

I maneuvered the skewer past two weatherstripping barriers, and then the hook was inside the car!

After that, it was fairly easy to use the hook to pull up the door lock. In case you don’t believe me, here’s a video of the whole process, which took a little more than 30 seconds:

Once I was aware of it, I noticed that my Civic appears to have quite a history of this entry method:

This was a strong reminder to me that I should never leave valuables in my car. If you own a ’90s Civic, the same applies to you!

Filed under: life, luck, technology

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