Ford Truck Door Handle Break in Fix

You work your butt off every month to make the payment on a truck you enjoy to drive. You go outside after enjoying a nice evening with friends and family, only to find your owner's manual sitting on the passenger seat.

Hmmm, you ask? Who pulled the owner’s manual out? That’s odd. You try to make sense of it, but it’s late, and you’re ready to get home. You fire the truck up and drive home.

The next day, you wake up, and you start to think about that owner's manual sitting on your passenger's seat. How did that get there? And then it hits you. Someone was inside my truck.

You walk outside to check your driver's side handle and notice something is off. The keyhole doesn’t look right. Upon further investigation, you see small signs that someone forced entry into your truck. Now it all makes sense.

Having your truck broken into feels like one of the biggest violations in the world. Now you are responsible for paying for a new handle or your insurance deductible. It’s not fair, but it’s a reality that we are seeing increasingly in heavily populated areas.

The Ford Truck That Was Violated

Where Did The Truck Get Broken Into?

The parking lot of Top Golf in San Antonio, Tx.

Based on what we have been reading on Facebook from other people who have had their trucks broken into, they were most likely looking for a gun. Many people in our area have had guns stolen out of their vehicles. They left the radar detector and sunglasses hanging on the rearview mirror.

Nothing else was stolen or removed from the vehicle. Of course, we have no facts to back this up. Anything you read online is true, right?

How Did They Break Into the Ford F-150 Truck?

Thieves broke into our 2019 Ford F-150 Raptor pickup truck by going through the driver's side door handle. There is a special technique they use to turn the lock cylinder with pliers or vise grips, which allows them to access the inside of the vehicle without breaking a window.

If you pull the handle out on an F-150 pickup truck, the lock cylinder is exposed. Thieves will take vise grips and turn this cylinder until it breaks, allowing them access into the vehicle. I don’t know the exact steps involved, but that is the general idea of how they are breaking into Ford trucks.

The Alarm Horns Did Not Go Off

The thieves knew how to disable the truck horn by reaching up through the front grill and disconnecting the wires. When they went to open the driver door, all was silent at night as the horns were not connected.

Having a separate siren under the hood or finding a way to shield the horn wires behind the grille may help with this issue. If the truck alarm is blaring, it may cause the thieves to move on to another area.

Are Ford Trucks Easy to Break Into?

Yes, according to the insurance agent, we spoke to. They see this issue all the time due to the design of the driver's side locking handle. Now, this could be because Ford sells more trucks than anyone. I have no experience trying to break into Ford, Chevy, Dodge, and Toyota trucks for a comparison.

How To Prevent Future Ford Truck Break Ins?

Because the insurance company sees this issue so often, they had an interesting solution to the problem. Install a rear door handle on the driver's door to get rid of the keyhole and lock cylinder altogether. A rear handle does not have a keyhole, which is what allows them to break into the truck in the first place.

Now, it’s important to keep in mind you will no longer have a keyhole to access your truck, and you also lose the button on the driver's handle that allows for keyless lock and unlock. Our pickup truck has the Ford keypad on the outside, which is one of the greatest features ever made for vehicles. Between that, the keyless remote, and the fact we haven’t used a keyhole in years, we felt it was a great trade-off.

How Much Was The Repair?

The total cost for the repair made by the body shop was $900. This cost included the cost of the new rear handle, painting the new handle to match the color of the truck, and labor to install.

Our insurance deductible on this claim was $500 which is what we ended up having to pay out of pocket because of worthless thieves. Because we had the body shop install a rear handle on the driver's door with no keyhole, there was a $75 credit given to us. Our total out-of-pocket was $425 and insurance picked up the rest.

Conclusion

This was our second truck to get broken into in a 2-3 year period. We had a Toyota Tundra pickup truck that was broken into by smashing a window. The repairs on that break in were far worse, as they damaged side windows and the windshield trying to pull down our radar detector.

Having a new windshield installed correctly with all the modern safety features attached can tough due to the complexity of vehicles today. There are millions of Ford trucks on the road, and that is because they are the #1 selling truck for over forty years. Because of this, truck break-ins will most likely be more common on Ford trucks due to the simple law of numbers.

From what we read on Facebook in our area, all truck brands are being broken into and stolen daily. It’s an unfortunate reality that is plaguing our society that doesn’t appear to have a solution anytime soon.