Lexus Trunk Lockout

During my years as a locksmith technician, I've done many types of lockout services. These types of locksmith services are the most common services a locksmith technician will do most of his years in the field. Even though there are various types of lockout services such as  home, business our automotive, it seem as automotive lockout service is the most common one. It is only natural the most people will forget their keys inside their vehicle at one time or another. For the average locksmith technician, unlocking a vehicle can be a simple task, but what happen if the customer locked the keys inside his or hers vehicle's trunk?

I remember few years ago I got a call from a customer who accidentally locked the keys of his 97 Lexus inside the the trunk. At that time, I did not have much experience working with Lexus vehicles, but I figured it won't be much different  than other types of vehicles I did before. I learned that most vehicles in the 90's were equipped with a trunk release lever which made it easy to unlock a trunk, once the vehicle was opened. I took the customer's information and headed his way.

Once I got to the address the customer gave me, I reviewed some of the material I had instructing
the best way of unlocking this type of vehicle. According to my guide it was an across-the-vehicle-tool which I had. It was also mentioned that if the alarm was armed, I would have to pull the handle simultaneously with using the tool to unlock the door. I had the customer help me for that part and after few attempts the door was opened. As I suspected, the vehicle did have a trunk release lever. However, when I came to pull it, nothing happened. After trying multiple times, I realized I was not getting anywhere and decided to make a call to a Seattle locksmith co-worker of mine for advice.

After getting my co-worker on the phone, he mentioned something that I wasn't aware of or ran into on other vehicles I serviced. Apperatnly, for this type of vehicle there was a Valet-Lockout cylinder
that controlled the locking mechanism of the trunk release lever. To enable it, it was a very simple process. All I needed to do was remove the under dash cover on the driver's side and look behind the cylinder where there was a piece of plastic clip. Once I removed it, I was able to use the trunk release lever, pop the trunk and give the customer back his keys.