You're locked out and the door lock doesn't work right, huh?

Usually there's a flat battery too, so there's no power-unlock to the doors from ANYWHERE - boot, alarm... It's catch-22, you can't get the bonnet up to jumpstart without opening the doors without jumpstarting the power without getting the bonnet up...

The main golden rule: don't panic - there are options.

The classic, approved method is this:

• If using remote locking, GET THE KEY
• Go to the PASSENGERS door... the manual override is definitely present there. This procedure should also work on the driver's door too, but it's your choice and one maybe more difficult than the other.
• Put in the key (duh)
• Lift the door handle; hold it up now
• Turn the key to the FRONT of the car; it should hit resistance at about 45 degrees
• Carry on turning the key to 90 degrees - it will be stiff, it's meant ot be. Stiff does not mean turning so hard you break the key or lock. Your car may have problems or be different - your call. On my car I did find that the door handle did have a "notch" I could find when trying to also turn the key where the key would turn better, and that "notch" wasn't when the handle was held full out
• at 90 degrees door lock pin should pop up
• return key to vertical
• let handle down
• open the door as normal...

1. all the other doors are in deadlock "ignore the pin" mode - so trying to lift a pin through a window won't work
2. the trunk will unlock with a key, but it won't unlock the rest of the car, even if the battery is providing power.

To do this:

• Make up a small wire hook out of stiff wire. one end should have a hook about 1cm internal diameter in it
• Go to the front left headlights, looking from the front of the car.
• Find the rubber wind-sealing strip on the underside of the front edge of the hood
• Lay your hook flat, and work it in between the sealing strip and the upper radiator mounting plate that runs across the top of the headlight cluster. Start at the leftmost edge of the headlights area; go too far right and you'll hit the upturn the headlight surround screws onto.
• Push it in, approximately pointing towards center of the engine bay.
• Turn it 90 degrees so the hook loop is vertical.
• Pull it slowly back out, (hopefully) snagging the bonnet release cable on the way
• Give it a sharp tug to release the bonnet/hood by pulling the outer AND the inner of the cable.

In all cases it's up to you to get the RIGHT battery polarity, and work out if the effort/damage/ risk is worth it. Your car, your call.

After any work.... REMEMBER TO CHECK THE DOOR LOCKS AGAIN AFTER A MANUAL OPEN... you want your car secure, right?

You can also lock up this way by turning the key to the REAR of the car 90 degrees if you've lost battery.

Deadlocking / resynch problems

The problem with a manually opened lock is that sometimes they refuse to re-lock... they are stuck in manual override mode, and won't re-lock under central-locking with the rest of the car. The steps I've followed to sort this out on my 735 (opened passenger door on override) were to

• lock the car to deadlock mode with the central locking (eg turn key in drivers' door to 90 degrees rearward)
• then override-lock the passengers' door - by tuning it to 90degrees towards the FRONT of the car (LOCK, remember - UNLOCK is 90 degrees towards the rear of the car)
• then try a central-locking unlock of the whole car from the drivers' door -