It happens constantly
Keys on the driver seat with the doors locked. Keys in the boot. Engine running in a car park. Shopping in the back and a toddler in a car seat. Wimberley Towing runs lockout calls every week, and nobody on our team is going to make you feel stupid about it, because we have watched it happen to careful people who were simply having a bad day.
If there is a child or a pet in the car, say so first
Tell dispatch the moment you call (512) 375-1215. In a Texas summer the inside of a locked car climbs past dangerous within minutes, not hours, and that call stops being a routine unlock and becomes an emergency. If it is already serious, call 911 first and us second. No lock is worth a child.
How we get in
Purpose-made tools, used on the door rather than force used on the glass. A modern car has a side airbag in the door, wiring in the pillar, and paint that costs real money, so this is a job where the right tools matter far more than strength does. We are not going to break your window, and if somebody offers to, decline.
The old trick of a coat hanger down the window seal has not worked on most cars for twenty years and is an excellent way to tear a weather seal or scratch a door card. The internet is full of confident advice about this and most of it will cost you more than the call would have.
Cars we cannot always open
Some vehicles genuinely cannot be opened this way. Certain newer models, deadlocked cars, and some European locking systems need a locksmith or a dealer key, and no amount of persistence changes that. If yours is one of them, we will tell you rather than spend an hour failing at your expense, and we can flatbed the car to wherever the key actually is.
That honesty is the point. A company that will not admit a job is beyond the tool is a company that is about to damage your car.
Where these calls come from
Car parks and driveways more than roads. The campus and apartments in San Marcos generate a steady run of them, the outlets in Buda produce more, and the venue lots on the Fitzhugh Road tasting trail out in Dripping Springs produce more still, usually late and usually in the dark. See winery and brewery towing.
What it costs
A lockout is priced as a roadside call rather than a tow, and dispatch gives you the number before anyone drives out. See towing rates.
Part of our full roadside assistance service.
What a lockout costs
Priced as a roadside call rather than a tow, and quoted before anyone drives out. If your vehicle turns out to be one of the few we genuinely cannot open, you will not be charged for an hour of somebody failing at it. See towing rates.
Spare keys, and the conversation nobody wants
If you have a spare key twenty minutes away with somebody who can bring it, that is almost always faster and cheaper than any call you can make, and we will tell you so. We would rather lose a callout than take money for something you could have solved with a phone call to your partner.
If the spare key is also in the car, which happens more often than you would believe, call (512) 375-1215.
Keyless entry, and the modern version of this problem
Cars with keyless entry lock themselves in ways older cars did not. A fob left in a boot that then closes. A fob with a dead battery that will not talk to the car. A car that locks automatically after a few minutes with the fob still inside it. All of these are lockouts and none of them are your fault.
Tell dispatch it is keyless, because it changes what we bring and occasionally it changes whether the job is a lockout at all rather than a flat fob battery you can fix yourself in a car park for a few dollars. We will tell you if that is what it is.
Do not let a stranger try it
There is always somebody in a car park who is confident they can get into your car with a wire and a bit of persistence. Sometimes they can. Frequently what they get instead is a torn weather seal, a scratched door card, a bent frame, or a deployed side airbag, and none of that is covered by their confidence.
Call (512) 375-1215 and wait. It is a short wait and a cheap call, and the alternative is neither.