Noel":3b94a27z said:
Depending on your make and model and where exactly the keys are you could try simply to try and retrieve the keys by prising open the top of a door. Proper way to do that is to use a bladder and a hand pump which of course most people don't have lying about. The bladder is similar to a whoopee cushion, placed in the slightly prised open gap at the top of a door and inflated. In the absence of such thing a few rags and a couple of long screw drivers do a similar job. Once you have a space at the top of the door keep it open with some kind of wedge and then it's wire coat hanger time and a bit of fishing (or even better is a telescopic rod with a small magnet at the end) . It can be a 10 minute job or a long and frustrating experience. Best of luck anyway.
PS - does it matter if the spare key doesn't work? It'll either open the car or not I would've thought.
Have you ever tried this Noel? I ask as I am as are a few others, a serving firefighter and we make ourselves experts onto breaking into cars. Although the top corner is definatly a week point I can't see this working on any modern day vehicle, perhaps a few years ago it may have? I've spent hours struggling on motorways and A roads with the jaws which can spread 32 tons and gotten very little movement so I can't see a hand pump doing the trick anymore.
We have a lot of input from car manufactures, Volvo are quite good at keeping us upto date but currently as far as I know there is no easy way to get past the deadlock. I've been to a few incidents where children have been locked in the car by mothers and such on the school run and once or twice we've been lucky with an slightly open sunroof and been able to fish the keys out but the standard tactic is to break a quater lite.
Apparently the old tennis ball over the lock and give it a whack used to work on cars, (worked by creating a pressure wave or some such?) but that was before my time. May even work for an older car but I really don't know.