Rant: my car door lock froze solid at a rest stop in Nebraska last week

I was driving through Nebraska last Tuesday and stopped at a rest area near Grand Island. When I came back out, my driver side door lock was completely frozen shut. I tried my key, I tried heating it with my breath (stupid, I know), nothing worked. I ended up having to climb through the passenger side, which was a joke because I had bags piled up on that seat. After messing with it for 20 minutes, I remembered an old trick my dad showed me - rubbing alcohol on the key before inserting it. I poured a tiny bit from a travel bottle into the lock and it freed up in about 30 seconds. Has anyone else dealt with frozen locks in random places like this, or do you guys carry something more advanced than cheap hand sanitizer for emergencies?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_faith8d ago

ok so about the rubbing alcohol trick... it works but just a heads up, hand sanitizer is usually like 60-70% alcohol and it has gel in it so it can actually gum things up worse if it freezes again. I learned that the hard way on my old Ford F-150 lol. You really want straight up isopropyl alcohol from the drugstore, the 91% stuff, in a tiny squeeze bottle. I keep one in my glove box now after getting stuck at a gas station in Wyoming last January. The pure alcohol evaporates way faster and doesn't leave that sticky residue behind like sanitizer does.

oliverbailey8d ago

91% isopropyl is the only thing I use now too, @the_faith, after ruining a lock with hand sanitizer in Montana last winter.