Car Lockout in San Jose
Any make and model, opened without damage.
4.9 / 5· 312 reviews from San Jose & South Bay
$99–$185
Typical price
20 min
Avg. arrival
24/7
Availability
Keys on the seat in a downtown garage, a Great Mall lot or the shoulder of 101, and the car opened without a mark on the trim
Car lockouts in San Jose cluster in places you can name. The decks around the SAP Center after a game, where every level looks identical and nobody remembers which one they parked on. The surface lots at the Great Mall and Eastridge on a Saturday. The office garages along North First St at seven in the evening, when the badge still works but the car key is on a desk upstairs. And the shoulder of 101 or 880, which is the one call that changes everything else about how the job is run. Say on the phone if you are on a freeway shoulder, because then the technician comes to the passenger side, works from behind the barrier where there is one, and the whole thing is over in a couple of minutes rather than being done carefully in the slow lane.
The tool is an air wedge and a long reach tool, not a slim jim. A wedge opens a few millimetres of gap at the top corner of the door, the reach tool goes through that gap, and the interior handle or the unlock button does the work your own hand would. Nothing touches the lock cylinder and nothing is levered against the paint. Modern cars make this easier rather than harder: an electric unlock button is a bigger target than a mechanical lever. The two that need a word first are frameless windows on coupes and some EVs, where the glass has to drop before the door will open at all, and doors sealed by a rubber lip that has to be lifted rather than pushed. Flush handles are not a problem. A dead twelve-volt battery is: with no power at all the interior button will not answer, and that becomes a different job, which you hear about on the phone rather than at the kerb.
A car opening is $99 to $185. Daylight, an ordinary saloon, an accessible car park: the bottom of that. Freeway shoulder, frameless glass, or a car parked so tight against a pillar that only one door can be reached: the top. The $89 service call is inside the figure. Between 8pm and midnight the $99 opening reads $139, and between midnight and 7am it reads $174. Both tiers are counted in before you hear a number. If the key is locked in the boot rather than the cabin, or the car has no working battery, that is said on the call with its own figure, before anyone drives over.
A child or a dog inside changes the order of everything. Say it in the first sentence: the job goes to the front of the queue, the nearest van turns around for it, and you are told which street the technician is on rather than given a range. On a hot afternoon in an uncovered lot you will also be told to call 911 first, because on that job the point is the child, not who gets the door open. For everything else: give the level and the nearest stairwell letter if you are in a structure, the make, colour and plate, and whether you can see the keys. Twenty minutes is the citywide average, longer when a Sharks or Earthquakes crowd is turning out.
“One in the morning, my daughter asleep the other side of the door, and the mortise key on the kitchen table. The figure I heard on the phone was $193 with the overnight rate already in it, and $193 is what the card was charged. Nineteen minutes, no drill, and the old lock still turns the way it always did.”
Every quote is confirmed on the phone before a van moves — and it's what your invoice says.
- Daytime (7am–8pm)standard rates
- Evening (8pm–12am)+$40
- Overnight (12am–7am)+$75
About car lockout in San Jose
I am on the shoulder of 101 with the keys inside. Is that a normal call for you?+
It is, and it is the one where you should lead with the location. The technician approaches from the passenger side, works with the traffic behind them rather than beside them, and keeps the job to a couple of minutes instead of doing it thoroughly in the slow lane. Stand behind the barrier if there is one, and if there is not, stand well up the embankment rather than beside your own car.
My keys are in the boot, not the cabin. Same price?+
Usually not, and you hear that on the phone. On most cars the boot opens from inside the cabin once the door is open, in which case it is an ordinary opening. On some estates and hatchbacks with a separate boot lock, and on any car where the boot release has no power, the work is different and carries its own figure. Say which car it is when you call and the right number gets named the first time.
Will opening it this way set off the alarm?+
Sometimes, and it does no harm. An alarm that sounds when the door opens stops once the car is unlocked properly from the inside handle, which is exactly what happens here. What does not happen is a broken window or a scratched door edge, which is what a coat hanger through the top of the frame usually costs.
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