JIS300

So long story short, my battery crapped out yesterday on my 2013 Lexus GS 350 and now the car won't unlock and I am unable to get into the car to pop open the hood. With the battery dead, the 'unlock' button from the key fob is not working and to my surprise, the mechanical key isn't working either! The mechanical key won't open the driver side door but it will open the trunk which means that the mechanical key is correctly assigned to my vehicle (correct me if I'm wrong here). Has anyone experienced this before? I did some digging and apparently it happened to someone else on my.is to their IS but they never gave an update nor a solution. Are there key holes on the passenger/rear doors?? This weekend is labor day and the service department at my local Lexus dealership isn't open till Tuesday so I'm SOL with them. Again, my key fob AND my mechanical key isn't working so if anyone knows another way to pop open the hood, please do share. I'm trying to avoid smashing a window or using a slim jim if possible but I definitely feel like I'm running out of options here.

Any help or suggestions are appreciated!

Here is the link to the IS story I mentioned above.
http://my.is/forums/f89/dead-battery-locked-out-545138/

sam430

iTrader: (10)

Use your key...the mechanical key..edit...so mechanical key isn't working?...sorry.

sam430

iTrader: (10)

Replace your key battery...car battery likely have enough juice.

JIS300

I'm pretty sure my key fob has enough battery because I see the red dot that lights up when I press on the buttons, but I'll replace that first thing tomorrow to see if it'll work.

It's just odd that my mechanical key won't open the door but it opens the trunk anyone know if the passenger side and rear doors have a key hole for them? Like if there is a cap that goes over them that I can pop off?

CMT20

Did you buy this GS brand new? If you didn't, it is possible previous owner had the driver side door lock replaced.

Unfortunately, There are only 2 key holes for GS. Have you tried both sides of key shank when you inserted into driver side door?

bclexus

This has happened before. ► HERE is the thread.

Here's the outcome (from that thread)...
The manual keys won't open the driver door because apparently something on the inside of the door is misaligned. The driver door relay had to be replaced months ago and they had to remove the door panel to do that repair. Apparently when the panel was replaced they screwed up the locking mechanism part. About noon TODAY I finally got an answer from my dealership about that. They've set up an appt. for this upcoming Saturday to fix that so the manual keys can be used in the future. They won't be charging us for that repair. Thank Goodness! And, as for the car not opening electronically, the battery was dead for some reason. They think perhaps something drained the battery possibly during the extensive repair time it was being serviced (4 1/2 hours). After we charged the battery at home, the car runs and starts up just fine! And...the way we were finally able to get into the car, we ended up getting into the trunk and accessed the interior through the trunk opening...we stuck a long rod through the back seat entry hole from the trunk and used a hook on the end of the rod to manually pull the handle of the back door, which opened the door from the inside.

Chlim1122

At least a method that works.. But it wun work for my GS450h.. 😅

JIS300

^I don't understand.....you can only access the trunk opening through the center console on the rear seats from inside the car (not sure if that made any sense). You can't just open the trunk and pop open the little opening to the rear seats. In any case, I'll be contacting the local dealership first thing tomorrow to see what solutions they have.

dc5toGs350

call your insurance, have them slim jim in. Have a professional with special tools not a guy that uses coat hangers. Pretty sure you dont want them scratching up your car.

JIS300

Thanks fellas, I appreciate all the help. I ended up having someone use a break-in kit to get into the car since there was no other way. After, I swapped in a new battery and brought it into Lexus. They diagnosed the problem and told me that it was because there is a misalignment in the locking mechanism so the mechanical key wasn't latching onto anything. All covered under warranty so that was the silver lining.

bclexus

Had the car ever had any work done around the door's locking mechanism? You are the second person that had the dealer say the locking mechanism was misaligned, and that was the reason the mechanical key didn't unlock the door.

Probably a good idea for everyone to check their mechanical key to see if it works, or not...