We don’t mean to imply that you’re full of hot air, but this trick will help open your car if the door lock has frozen. Take a plastic drinking straw, squeeze it if you have to and put it into the lock hole. Then blow through it and into the lock. After a minute or two of this, the lock should be warm enough to open. If you know sub-zero weather is coming and you want to make sure you’ll be able to get into your car in the morning without a lot of deep breathing, this is what you can do…

Spray WD-40 (available at hardware stores) in the car door or trunk lock before it gets cold—this will prevent the lock from freezing. You can also spray it into the locks after they’ve frozen to defrost them, but we think the straw trick is more fun and provides a bigger sense of accomplishment and self-reliance.

And here’s what to do for frozen car doors.

More car care…

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