... because nothing happens! A coin in the door handle fails miserably in most car models as a “locking malfunction”!

This claim has been floating around the internet for years: If you discover a coin in your car door, your car will quickly be stolen!

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Is that correct?

No! Such claims fuel the fear of internet users!

Basically, the point is that some vehicles cannot be locked if there is a handle that does not close completely. In fact, there are car brands for which this works and some for which it doesn't work. It also depends on how sensitive the door opener is. If you pull on a door handle while closing it and it is at least half tight, many vehicles will open again straight away .

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But you can clearly hear it because it “cracks” twice . A thin cent piece alone is usually not enough, but if the handle is actually opened wide enough, it will be unlocked again immediately (which makes sense, since it can be assumed that the exit and entry process has not yet been completely completed).

The fact check

Of course we wanted to know exactly and just tried it ourselves (at this point we would like to thank Matthes again):

At least with this model, the glorious thief's scam fails 100%. For better or worse, most thieves would get a very bad deal with this method.

colleagues at Snopes also investigated this matter. They contacted Caliber Collision Repair in Lindenhurst, New York and asked if the method described would be effective. The employee was already laughing during the explanation and said that car door locks can't really be disabled this way because there's no place to wedge a coin in most current vehicle models.

A mechanic at Arnold Chevrolet Buick's service department in Babylon, New York, also laughed heartily at this claim and called it "highly implausible." While he suspects it might to sabotage a lock with a coin on some older vehicles, this only applies to cars that don't have remote locking. But even here, drivers would quickly notice whether the locks engage or not.

Result:

So far, no one has been able to prove the trick's feasibility. On most car models, a coin is not nearly enough to disrupt the locking mechanism.

A note on Italian door handles:

However, if you see vehicles in the winter that have a cork jammed into the door handle, you should simply leave it there - for the driver's sake. The design of many Italian handles encourages the handle to freeze on the car!

You could have saved yourself having to complete it beforehand. 😉


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Notes:
1) This content reflects the current state of affairs at the time of publication. The reproduction of individual images, screenshots, embeds or video sequences serves to discuss the topic. 2) Individual contributions were created through the use of machine assistance and were carefully checked by the Mimikama editorial team before publication. ( Reason )