3 Ways to Remove a Wheel Lock Without a Key

What's up guys, Matt with Bleepin' Jeep here, everything off-road, none of the boring stuff. Today, I have quite a bit of an issue. I've got this wheel lock right here, but I don't have a key for it. So today, I've got three ideas of ways to remove it, and we'll start with the most non-invasive and work our way up until it's gone. Let's get started. So long story short, I bought this Jeep brand new last year when they first came out. I didn't have any reason to take the spare tire off until the other day when I went to upgrade the wheels and tires. And underneath here, this was kind of covered by this backup camera, and lo and behold, there's some sort of key lock on here. I take it to the Jeep dealership, and the first question they asked me was, who installed your lift, as they rolled their eyes. Why that pertains to this, I have no idea. That's another story in itself. But anyway, they basically told me, F you, we're not gonna help you go deal with it yourself. So that's where we are today. So let me show you my first idea. So this is my first idea. Check this out, this is a socket, but not just a regular socket. It's one of those universal sockets. And the idea here is that it has pins, and it will fit any size nut or bolt. So you take this and you put it on a bolt, just like you would a regular socket. Those pins push in, and it's supposed to conform to any size nut or bolt. What do you think, is that gonna work? Let's go give it a shot. So as I expected, it's not big enough. This is the biggest universal one that I could find, and it's 21 millimeters, and it won't go over that. But, I had an idea, will it go over this one? And it does, so this is a different kind of key. I do have a key for this, but I just wanna test this theory and see if it would work on this type. Oh, that's on there good. Okay, so now we've created another problem. This is either gonna break, or it's gonna come loose. Hey, we got it, I just needed more leverage. All right, not ideal, as it kind of screwed everything up, but it did work if you have one of these smaller key locks. Pretty much toast, so 10 bucks, you get one lug nut out of it. My next idea is to take this socket, which doesn't quite fit over there, and grind some angles onto this key until it fits this socket. It would be so much easier if this camera wasn't here, but it is, so we gotta figure that out somehow. First thing I'm gonna do is wrap it all in tape to try to keep from ruining the wheel or this camera. Okay, so the tool I've chosen to use is an air die grinder with a cutoff wheel on it. It's pretty much the only way I can get to the top of that thing, and I'm just gonna take my time and try to cut six sides. Socket has six sides. And I don't need to take off much, because it almost fits on there, so I just need to take a little bit off on all six sides. Let's give it a shot. Oh, oh, whoa. All right, check it out. I cut six sides. It only took me about a minute, and I started daydreaming, and I cut the dang wheel, and it sucks, because I was on the very last cut, and it was either cutting the camera or cut the wheel, and I probably could've ground off the blade and gotten it smaller, but it just wouldn't really fit in there, so I accidentally did that. But anyway, this fits on there. It's sort of loose. Let's see if it'll come off. Oh, yeah. Ha-ha! I got it. Woo! That's totally awesome, and totally sucks at the same time that I cut the wheel. And it also sucks that the dealership wouldn't help me out, even though they sold me a new Jeep without the key. And it wasn't on all the other tires. It was only on this one on the spare tire on the back. So you may be wondering what my third option was going to be. Well, you're in luck, because I put it back, and I'm gonna show you what I would've done if that didn't work. First thing you need to do is make sure that it's metal or steel, and then what I'm going to do is take a smaller socket, and we're gonna weld it to that. Yes, you're gonna need to have a welder. That's why I saved it for last, because some of you may not have one, but if you did, you'd find a friend who had a welder or whatever, and we're gonna weld that to it, and then we'll have a place right here to put a wrench and spin it off. Whoa! Probably should've done that first, and I wouldn't have cut my wheel. Oh well, live and learn. And it's tempting to grab that, but I'm not going to do it. Woo, that's hot. All right guys, so what other methods are there? Did I miss any? Is there something else you would've tried? Leave your comments down below. I'd like to hear them, and while you're on that subject, let me hear your horror stories from the dealership. I'd like to know that I'm not the only one. Make sure to hit the thumbs up if you enjoyed the video. Make sure to subscribe as well, and hit that bell. I'd love it if you'd hit that bell. Please just hit the bell. Please do that for us. I appreciate it. We'll see you in the next video.