What to do if the car doors do not open in the cold
Content
Door locks can fail at any time, but in winter this probability increases many times over. The reason for this will be the formation of ice from water and its condensate, which are always present on body parts. The problem can arise suddenly and always causes great trouble, especially if you start to use force in a hurry.
Why won't car doors open in winter?
There are usually two reasons - the presence of ice and problems with lubrication. Even if it is present in the right amount, its properties are partially lost in the cold.
The castle larva froze
A lock cylinder is a complex and delicate mechanism that encodes a combination of a lock and a key. Only if the codes match does it become possible to turn the sleeve, unlocking the door.
Responsible for coding spring-loaded pins installed in the cylinder of the larva. They look like thin plate frames of different geometries. Only if their location matches the shape of the key groove can the larva be turned.
It becomes clear that if the frames have lost their mobility due to ice, then it is absolutely useless to apply force here. The entire power circuit of the castle will resist, and not fragile ice. There is no access to it. It can be melted, but not broken.
Frozen seals
The lock may work fine, unlocking and locking the mechanism, but it will not work to open the door. The reason is the freezing of the seals.
Along the perimeter, the door in its opening lies on a rubber profiled seal, consisting of steel reinforcement and elastic edges.
When the whole structure is covered with ice, it forms a kind of solder joint between the door and the opening.
If there were no compactor, then with a certain application of force, the ice could collapse. But rubber is a weak point here, and it is she who will collapse in the first place.
Therefore, such a technique can be performed only in case of emergency, and then, preferably in relation to one of the passenger doors. Otherwise, then you have to go with a strong draft for the driver.
Stuck door handle pull
Problems with two rods can be critical - from the larva and from the door handle. In the cold, the plastic from which the ball joints are made here hardens and ceases to transmit force with minimal friction, that is, it wedges, or even simply breaks.
There is only one way out - to try to open any other door, in the hope that things are better there. The application of force will lead to the traditional result - the breakage of still living parts.
What not to do
The action that leads to breakdowns, and not to opening the machine, is based on the use of excessive force.
And it is difficult to dose it here, since only very experienced auto mechanics have such a sense of mechanisms and materials.
Several typical cases are possible:
- power rotation of the key in the larva leads to breakage of its sting relative to the handle;
- squeezing out the frozen seal, the rubber breaks, the interior loses its tightness;
- jerks at the door handle, the rod connecting it to the lock mechanism breaks, usually in the area of \uXNUMXb\uXNUMXbplastic ball tips and their threaded joints;
- attempts to quickly warm up with an open flame, the paintwork will be damaged;
- pouring hot water from a kettle, the same result, plus even more reliable freezing of the lock.
The basic principle of opening is in conflict with the conditions - you can’t rush here, although you really want to. There can be only one way out - to foresee the situation in advance and take action.
5 Ways to Open Frozen Doors
There is nothing really terrible in freezing the doors, you just need to competently cope with the situation.
Wait for the thaw
Leaving the car for a few months would be unwise. But in extreme cases, it can be delivered to a heated room on a tow truck.
Some cars are so expensive to repair after a quick opening of the doors that the issue price is quite acceptable.
Industrial dryer
If you have access to the mains, but you can use a stream of warm air from a powerful hair dryer. A household one is unlikely to help, its abilities are limited, and a professional one is able to melt metals, not just ice.
But you should act carefully and gradually, the air temperature at the outlet of such a device reaches 600 degrees or more. Can easily burn paint and plastic parts.
Aerosol lubricants
As always, the best thing is not to invent a bicycle using kitchen utensils, but to purchase specialized auto chemicals.
There are very inexpensive sprays and aerosols such as door lock defrosters and sealants. They shed problem areas. If no immediate effect occurs, the operation is repeated until victory.
Do not work with universal formulations based on petroleum products. Their frost resistance is low, the defrosting effect is also, and when accumulated, they will work no better than ice.
In addition, they will negatively affect rubber parts. An exception is preventive treatment with silicone grease, which is neutral to varnish and elastic materials, although here it is also more reliable to use a special tool to protect seals from freezing.
Hot key
At not very low temperatures, repeated heating of the key sting with its immersion in the larva helps. Gradually it will warm up, and the key can be turned. The force must be regular, its increase will not help with fixed coding strips.
Car service
The tow truck has already been mentioned, and its use means not only warming up the entire body, but also trust in car service professionals.
They better understand what exactly happened, and work with minimal losses. Financial and time costs are still much lower than broken mechanisms, which still have to be restored in the same service. While waiting for the delivery of the necessary parts.
