AUTO LOCKOUT SERVICE
LOCKED OUT OF YOUR CAR IN NYC?We open car doors, trunks and van cabs across all five boroughs and Nassau County — 24 hours a day, from $125 flat.
Auto Lockout Service is a woman-owned mobile auto lockout company, owned and operated by Lana Schmid, that opens locked cars, vans and trucks anywhere in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, Staten Island and Nassau County, 24 hours a day. A standard car lockout is a flat $125 quoted on the phone before anyone is sent out, and the door is opened with proper lockout tools, so no window is broken and no lock is damaged.
24 HOUR VEHICLE LOCKOUT SERVICES IN NYC & NASSAU COUNTY
LOCKED OUT OF YOUR CAR? WE OPEN IT. 24 HOURS.
24 Hour Auto Lockout Service in New York City and Nassau County
We open locked vehicles — cars, SUVs, pickups, cargo vans, box trucks and commercial fleet vehicles — anywhere in the five boroughs or Nassau County, at any hour of any day. A standard car is a flat $125, quoted before anyone is sent out.
A lockout is a small problem that becomes a large one quickly. The car is blocking a driveway, or the street sweeper is due, or you are standing in a parking garage at midnight with a phone on nine percent. What you need is not advice. It is somebody with an air wedge and a long reach tool who already knows how the door card comes apart on your particular vehicle.
That is the whole service. You call, you describe the vehicle and where it is, you get a flat price, and someone opens it without touching the glass. If you want the number before you call, the auto lockout service cost is published in full rather than hidden behind a quote form.
What to Do When You Are Locked Out of Your Car in NYC
Four steps, in this order. The first is free and solves it more often than you would think; the second matters more than everything else on this page combined.
Check every door, the tailgate and the trunk
It sounds too obvious to write down, and a real share of calls end with the caller finding an unlocked rear door while still on the phone. Cars get locked less thoroughly than people assume in the moment.
If anyone is inside, call 911 before anything else
A child, an elderly person or a pet shut in a vehicle is an emergency, and in hot or freezing weather it escalates fast. Emergency services will treat it as one and reach you faster than any locksmith.
Leave the door alone — no hangers, no screwdrivers
Behind the door card sit the airbag wiring, the window regulator and the lock linkage, packed into a couple of inches. Improvised tools find those before they find the lock.
Call, and have four details ready
Where the car is, the year, make and model, whether the engine is running, and whether you can see the keys. That is enough to price the job and bring the right tools.
Once those four are done there is nothing else useful you can do from outside the car. To book an auto lockout service the number is (718) 600-1581, answered at any hour — and if it turns out to be something we do not handle, you will be told on the call rather than after a wasted wait.
Types of Auto Lockout Service We Provide for Every Vehicle
Six situations cover almost every call. They are all versions of the same underlying job — getting past a locked door without damaging it — but the urgency and the tools differ enough that each is worth understanding separately.
Keys locked in car
We open the driver door with an air wedge and a coated reach tool, usually within a few minutes of someone reaching the vehicle. This is the everyday lockout: keys sitting on the seat or in the cup holder, every door locked. Nothing is drilled and no glass is broken, so the car is exactly as you left it.
Keys locked in trunk
On most cars we reach the trunk through the cabin rather than through the trunk lock. The driver door is opened normally, then the interior trunk release or the fold-down rear seats do the rest — so the trunk lid, its latch and its wiring are never touched. A few models have a genuinely separate trunk lock, so tell us the year, make and model.
Keys locked in car with engine running
Say the engine is running the moment you call and this moves ahead of a parked lockout. A running car burns fuel, sits unattended and vents exhaust, which makes it the one lockout that genuinely gets worse the longer it waits. The work itself is the same door opening, and it does not cost more for being urgent.
Key fob dead, cannot get into car
We open the cabin so your car's own override can do its job. Nearly every push-to-start vehicle hides a mechanical key blade inside the fob and a concealed keyhole on the driver door handle, and both are useless while the fob is shut inside the car. We do not program fobs or cut keys — that is dealer and locksmith work.
Locked out of a van or box truck
Sprinters, Transits, ProMasters, pickups and box trucks need different tools than a sedan: heavier doors, deeper frames, and lock linkages that run a different path. Many cargo vans also have a bulkhead, which makes the cab and the load area two separate locked boxes. Tell us which door and what you drive and you get a real price on the call.
Company vehicle and fleet lockout
Drivers can call directly, because they know the vehicle, the door and where they actually are. Fleet lockouts cluster mid-route with a load on board, so the real cost is the lost hour rather than the call-out. Company cars are the standard flat rate; vans and trucks are quoted on the call. Nothing needs setting up in advance.
Every one of them runs across the whole coverage area at the same hours and the same rates. If you are not sure which describes your situation, that is our problem rather than yours — an emergency auto lockout service call starts with two or three questions that sort it out in under a minute.
How Much Does an Auto Lockout Service Cost in NYC?
A car lockout costs a flat $125 for a standard car anywhere in the five boroughs or Nassau County, at any hour, with larger and commercial vehicles quoted on the call before anyone is sent out.
| Vehicle or situation | Price | Conditions |
|---|---|---|
| Standard car — sedan, coupe, hatchback, small crossover | $125 | Covers the call-out and opening the vehicle. Same price in every part of the service area. |
| Trunk lockout on a standard car | $125 | When the trunk is reached through the cabin, which covers the large majority of cars. |
| Keys locked in a running car | $125 | Treated as a priority, but there is no urgency surcharge for it. |
| Dead key fob on a push-to-start car | $125 | Getting you into the cabin. Does not include programming a fob or cutting a key — we do not do either. |
| Full-size SUV or pickup | Quoted on the call | Priced on your actual vehicle. You hear the number before anyone is sent out. |
| Cargo van, box truck or commercial cab | Quoted on the call | Cab and load-area lockouts differ, so say which one it is when you call. |
| Nights, weekends and holidays | No extra charge | The rate at 3am on a holiday is the rate at noon on a Tuesday. |
| Distance inside the service area | No extra charge | No mileage fee and no zone pricing, from Tottenville to Massapequa. |
Why one published price and not a full menu. A sedan door and a box-truck cab are not the same work, and posting a single number for both would mean either overcharging the easy jobs or underdelivering on the hard ones. So the common case gets a real, published flat rate you can hold us to, and everything else gets a real quote in the thirty seconds it takes you to say what you drive. The flat rate auto lockout service page spells out exactly what is and is not included.
How an Emergency Auto Lockout Service Call Works Step by Step
There is no app, no account and no form standing between you and the work. It is a phone call and four steps.
You call and describe the car
Year, make and model, where it is parked, whether the engine is running, and whether the keys are visible inside. Four details, about thirty seconds.
You get the price before anyone moves
A standard car is $125. Anything larger is quoted right then on the call. You are also told who is coming and what vehicle they are in.
The door is opened through the frame
An inflatable wedge opens a few millimetres at the top of the door. A coated reach tool goes through it to work the interior handle, the lock button or the unlock switch.
You confirm the car is yours, and you drive
Identification is checked, payment is taken by card or contactless, and you are back in the driver seat with the glass and the paint untouched.
We will not promise a specific arrival time on this page, because nobody honestly can — travel across New York City and Long Island depends on traffic, weather, distance and what is already running. You get a realistic answer on the call instead of an appealing one. To call an auto lockout service and get a price, that is (718) 600-1581, 24 hours a day.
How to Open a Locked Car Door Without Breaking a Window
Worth understanding, because it is the difference between a job that costs $125 and one that costs you a window, a door card and a day off the road.
A car door is not a sealed box. Its top edge presses against a rubber weather strip, and that joint can be spread by a small, controlled amount without harming anything. An inflatable wedge goes into the upper corner of the door frame and is pumped by hand until there is a gap of a few millimetres — enough to pass a tool through, not enough to deform the door.
A long reach tool then goes through that gap. It is a coated steel rod with a shaped tip, and depending on the vehicle it presses the electronic unlock button on the door panel, hooks the interior handle, or lifts a lock post. The coating is the point: bare metal against a door card leaves marks, and marked plastic is how you tell a professional job from an improvised one.
The reason the improvised version goes so badly is that modern doors are crowded. Behind the card sit the side-airbag wiring, the window regulator, the side-impact sensor and the lock actuator linkage. A coat hanger pushed blind into that space snags wiring and bends linkages, and the repair bill is routinely several times what the lockout would have cost. It is also the fastest way to set off a side airbag while your head is next to the door.
Breaking a window is worse than people expect. It is not just the glass: tempered side windows shatter into thousands of fragments that end up in the door cavity, the seat rails and the carpet, and they keep surfacing for months. Calling a car lockout service is cheaper than the glass alone, before you count the day the car is off the road.
Why Use a Local Auto Lockout Service Near You Instead of Waiting on Insurance
Plenty of auto policies, credit cards and manufacturer warranties include a lockout benefit, and if you are not in a hurry it is worth checking — we would rather tell you that than pretend otherwise. The trade-off is that those programmes subcontract the work out, so you wait on a queue you cannot see and have no say in who turns up.
Auto Lockout Service is a woman-owned mobile auto lockout company serving all five New York City boroughs and Nassau County, New York, owned and operated by Lana Schmid. It provides 24-hour damage-free vehicle entry for cars, SUVs, vans and trucks at a flat rate of $125 for a standard car, and does not provide residential lockouts, key cutting, key programming or towing.
Reachable on (718) 600-1581, 24 hours a day, every day of the year.
One trade, done properly
Vehicle lockouts only. Not towing, not jump starts, not house lockouts, not key cutting. The wedges, the reach tools and the vehicle-specific knowledge are already in the van before the phone rings, rather than a bit of kit for everything and the full kit for nothing.
Non-destructive entry, every time
The method is an air wedge at the top corner of the door and a coated long-reach tool through the gap. Nothing drilled, no lock cylinder replaced, nothing pried against paint, no glass broken. If a vehicle cannot be opened that way, the technician stops and tells you rather than forcing it.
The price is published, not negotiated
$125 for a standard car is stated in public where you can hold us to it, and quoted again on the phone before anyone is sent. Larger vehicles get a real number on the call rather than a range. There is no night, weekend or holiday premium.
Proof of ownership is checked
Before a door is opened you confirm you own the vehicle or are authorised to drive it, and show identification. It takes thirty seconds, it is what every legitimate operator does, and it is the reason you want a legitimate operator opening your car.
We say no in the first ten seconds
If your key is lost rather than locked inside, if the problem is the ignition, or if it is a building rather than a vehicle, you hear that on the call along with who to ring instead. It costs us the job and saves you the wait.
A named owner, not a call centre
The business is woman-owned and run by Lana Schmid. There is one number, it is answered by a person, and there is no membership to join, no app to download and no account to create before anything happens.
Auto Lockout Service in Every NYC Borough and Across Long Island
Six areas, one number, one flat rate. Pick where the car is actually parked rather than where you live — each page covers what a lockout genuinely looks like in that place, because a Midtown garage, a Brooklyn street with a cleaning sign, a Staten Island driveway and a Nassau station lot are four different problems, not one.
Auto Lockout Service Queens
Coverage runs across the whole of Queens County, including Astoria (11102, 11103 and 11105), Long Island City (11101), Jackson Heights (11372), Flushing (11354 and 11355), Forest Hills (11375), Jamaica (11432 and 11433), Bayside (11361), Far Rockaway (11691). If you are orienting by road, that is the ground either side of Queens Boulevard, Northern Boulevard, the Grand Central Parkway and the Long Island Expressway. Parking here is an unusual mix: dense permit and metered blocks at the western end, and one- and two-family homes with private driveways almost everywhere east of Forest Hills, which is what shapes the calls we get: Astoria, Long Island City, Flushing, Jamaica, Forest Hills and everywhere else inside Queens are the same flat $125 for a standard car, 24 hours a day. Full detail on auto lockout service in Queens.
Auto Lockout Service Brooklyn
Coverage runs across the whole of Kings County, including Williamsburg (11211 and 11249), Greenpoint (11222), Bushwick (11221 and 11237), Bedford-Stuyvesant (11216 and 11233), Park Slope (11215), Bay Ridge (11209), Flatbush (11226), Coney Island (11224). If you are orienting by road, that is the ground either side of Atlantic Avenue, Flatbush Avenue, Ocean Parkway and the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. Parking here is overwhelmingly kerbside, on blocks with posted street-cleaning hours — which is why a Brooklyn lockout so often comes with a ticket attached if the car cannot be moved in time, which is what shapes the calls we get: Williamsburg, Bushwick, Bedford-Stuyvesant, Park Slope, Bay Ridge and everywhere else inside Brooklyn are the same flat $125 for a standard car, 24 hours a day. Full detail on auto lockout service in Brooklyn.
Auto Lockout Service Manhattan
Coverage runs across the whole of New York County, including the Financial District (10004 and 10005), Chelsea (10011), Midtown (10018 and 10019), the Upper East Side (10021 and 10028), the Upper West Side (10023 and 10024), Harlem (10027), Washington Heights (10032 and 10033), Inwood (10034). If you are orienting by road, that is the ground either side of the FDR Drive, the West Side Highway, Broadway and 125th Street. Parking here is commercial garages far more than kerbs — which is why most Manhattan calls start with a level number rather than a street address, which is what shapes the calls we get: Midtown, the Financial District, Harlem, the Upper East Side, the Upper West Side and everywhere else inside Manhattan are the same flat $125 for a standard car, 24 hours a day. Full detail on auto lockout service in Manhattan.
Auto Lockout Service The Bronx
Coverage runs across the whole of Bronx County, including Mott Haven (10454), Fordham (10458), Pelham Bay (10461), Parkchester (10462), Throgs Neck (10465), City Island (10464), Riverdale (10471), Norwood (10467). If you are orienting by road, that is the ground either side of the Grand Concourse, the Bruckner Expressway, the Major Deegan Expressway and Fordham Road. Parking here is large residential-complex lots and big retail parking, with far more single-family driveways once you get out to Riverdale and City Island, which is what shapes the calls we get: Riverdale, Fordham, Throgs Neck, Pelham Bay, Morris Park and everywhere else inside the Bronx are the same flat $125 for a standard car, 24 hours a day. Full detail on auto lockout service in The Bronx.
Auto Lockout Service Staten Island
Coverage runs across the whole of Richmond County, including St. George (10301), Port Richmond (10302), Stapleton (10304), New Dorp (10306), Tottenville (10307), Great Kills (10308), New Springville (10314), Eltingville (10312). If you are orienting by road, that is the ground either side of Hylan Boulevard, Richmond Avenue, Victory Boulevard and Forest Avenue. Parking here is private driveways more than anywhere else in the city, plus the commuter and park-and-ride lots that fill at dawn and empty after dark, which is what shapes the calls we get: St. George, Tottenville, New Dorp, Great Kills, Port Richmond and everywhere else inside Staten Island are the same flat $125 for a standard car, 24 hours a day. Full detail on auto lockout service in Staten Island.
Auto Lockout Service Nassau County
Coverage runs across the whole of Nassau County, including Great Neck (11021 and 11023), Mineola (11501), Garden City (11530), Freeport (11520), Hempstead (11550), Long Beach (11561), Valley Stream (11580), Levittown (11756), Massapequa (11758), Hicksville (11801). If you are orienting by road, that is the ground either side of Hempstead Turnpike, Jericho Turnpike, Sunrise Highway and the Northern and Southern State Parkways. Parking here is driveways, enormous retail lots along the central corridor, and railroad station parking — the last of which produces the classic Nassau lockout, discovered after dark at the end of a commute, which is what shapes the calls we get: Hempstead, Hicksville, Long Beach, Freeport, Valley Stream and everywhere else inside Nassau County are the same flat $125 for a standard car, 24 hours a day. Full detail on auto lockout service in Nassau County.
Not sure which page applies, or calling on behalf of someone else? The service areas index lists every neighbourhood and town inside the footprint, and the same number covers all of it.
Common Reasons Drivers Get Locked Out of Their Cars in New York
Almost nobody does this while relaxed and unhurried. Six patterns cover the overwhelming majority of calls, and none of them are really about being careless.
The spare is inside the house
Overwhelmingly the most common story, and worst in the outer boroughs and on Long Island where the car sits on a driveway and the house key is on the same ring as the car key.
Loading the trunk
Shopping goes in the back, the keys go down for a second to free up a hand, and the lid closes on them. Big retail lots produce this one constantly.
A two-minute stop that auto-locked
Delivery and rideshare drivers hop out with the engine running. Many vehicles auto-lock on motion, and on a push-to-start car the fob being inside is enough for it to consider itself secure.
A fob that died in the cold
Fob batteries lose capacity as temperature drops, so a cell that was marginal in October fails in January — usually while you are standing next to a car that will not acknowledge you.
A handover in a car park
Valet, garage attendant, a partner, a colleague. Keys change hands, get put down on a seat, and the door swings shut. Manhattan garages generate a steady stream of exactly this.
Ordinary distraction
You are late, it is raining, you are carrying something in both hands. Nobody locks their keys in the car while relaxed and unhurried. It is not carelessness so much as ordinary life.
The one habit that prevents most of these: keep a spare key somewhere that is not the car and not the same ring as your house key. A wallet, a bag, a trusted neighbour. It costs a few dollars to cut and removes the single most common story we hear.
What an Auto Lockout Service Will Not Do — and Who to Call Instead
This list matters more than it looks. Sending someone to a job they cannot finish costs you the one thing you do not have when you are locked out, so it is better to hear this in ten seconds on the phone than to find out in a car park an hour later.
Houses, apartments and businesses. We are vehicles only. A building lockout needs a different licence and different tools — a general locksmith is who you want.
Cutting keys and programming fobs. If your key is genuinely lost or broken rather than locked inside, that is automotive locksmith or dealer work.
Ignition repair and broken key extraction. A key snapped off in the ignition or the door cylinder is a repair job, not a lockout.
Towing. We open the vehicle; we do not move it.
Anything with a person or an animal inside. Call 911 immediately. That is an emergency, emergency services will treat it as one, and waiting on a locksmith is the wrong call.
Everything else — keys on the seat, keys in the trunk, a dead fob, an engine left running, a locked work van — is an ordinary job for a 24 hour auto lockout service, and the price is on the table before anyone is sent.
Auto Lockout Service Questions New York Drivers Ask Most
The ten questions that come up on almost every call, answered straight — including the ones where the honest answer is that you do not need us at all. If yours is not here, an affordable auto lockout service should be able to tell you the price and the plan before you commit to anything.
How much does a car lockout cost?
$125 flat for a standard car, at any hour. That covers the call-out and opening the vehicle, with no night, weekend or holiday premium. Full-size SUVs, pickups, cargo vans and commercial vehicles are quoted on the call, so you hear the exact number before anyone is sent out.
Will unlocking my car damage the door, the lock or the paint?
No. A proper auto lockout uses an air wedge to open a few millimetres of gap at the top of the door frame, then a coated reach tool works the interior handle or the lock button. Nothing is drilled, nothing is pried against paint, and no glass is broken.
Do you have to break a window to get into a locked car?
No. Breaking a window is not a lockout technique — it is what happens when someone turns up without lockout tools. The door is opened through the frame and the glass is never touched. The one exception is an emergency with someone inside, and then you call 911 first.
My keys are locked in the car and the engine is still running. What do I do?
Say so the moment you call. A running car burns fuel, sits unattended and vents exhaust, so it is treated ahead of a parked lockout. Stay with the vehicle if it is safe to do so, do not leave it to go looking for help, and do not force a door.
Can you get into a push-to-start car when the key fob battery is dead?
Yes. Almost every push-to-start car hides a mechanical key blade inside the fob and a concealed keyhole on the driver door handle. Both are useless when the fob is shut inside the car, so we open the cabin and the vehicle's own override takes it from there.
My keys are locked in the trunk. Can you help?
Usually yes. On most cars the route into a locked trunk runs through the cabin, using the interior trunk release or the fold-down rear seats, so it starts as an ordinary door opening. Tell us the year, make and model and you get a straight answer before anyone is sent.
Do you unlock houses, apartments or businesses?
No. Auto Lockout Service is vehicles only — cars, SUVs, pickups, cargo vans, box trucks and commercial fleet vehicles. We do not do residential or commercial building lockouts, and we would rather tell you that in ten seconds on the phone than send someone who cannot help.
What areas do you cover?
All five New York City boroughs and Nassau County on Long Island: Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx and Staten Island, plus every town across Nassau from Great Neck out to Massapequa and down to Long Beach. Same price and same hours everywhere in that footprint.
Are you open 24 hours?
Yes, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, holidays included. Lockouts do not happen at convenient times. Most of them happen at the end of a shift, in a parking lot, in the rain, or at the exact moment you are already late for something else.
How do I pay, and when?
Major credit and debit cards and contactless mobile payment, due on completion. You are quoted the price on the phone before anyone is sent out, so there is nothing to negotiate once your door is open and no surprise line item waiting at the end of the job.
Call an Auto Lockout Service in NYC or Nassau County
A lockout is a phone problem, not a form problem. Call (718) 600-1581, describe the vehicle and where it is parked, and you get a price on the spot.
Business: Auto Lockout Service — Woman-owned and operated, operated by Lana Schmid
Phone: (718) 600-1581
Email: help@autolockoutservice.com — fleet and billing enquiries only, never an active lockout
Hours: 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, including holidays
Service area: All 5 NYC boroughs & Nassau County, Long Island
Where we are: this is a mobile service. We come to the vehicle — street, driveway, garage, lot or yard — so there is no walk-in address to visit.
Need an Auto Lockout Service Open Right Now in NYC?
Open 24 hours across Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, Staten Island and Nassau County. $125 flat on a standard car, damage-free, with the glass left where it belongs.
(718) 600-1581