Sorry for coming back late, they are not a member of AA or RAC, no I am afraid I also tried everything to open the doors to gain access to the car, as all the windows are electric, without a key in the ignition the windows cannot be wound down, tried pulling door handles both from inside and outside, they obviously pull out but nothing happens, believe it or not this car was also a victim of break in, someone broke its quarter rear window, and despite which they could not gain entry into the car.
Actually what happened to this car here is a story: it broke down about 6 streets from the woman owner's house, ( at this stage as we don't know the cause of break down, engine fails to start, since we cannot gain entry we can't diagnose the exact cause, we suspect either fuel problem or cam belt breakage)
The woman rang her son who towed it for her and brought the car over and parked very near my street in an adjoining road, where my mate does road side car repairs, so she left it with him and gave him her Astra's keys, he placed her keys in his car's glove box as he intended to see her car the next day, but overnight my mechanic mate who owns a Zafira had its rear quarter glass broken and and thieves stole a few of his tools along with this woman's Astra car keys that he left in his Zafira's Glove box, there has been a spate of car break ins in my street and adjoining streets and this month alone 8 cars to my knowledge have been victim of these thefts with broken quarter windows, my own Nissan Micra was also a victim but I was lucky as they didn't have to break any of its windows to gain access, somehow they managed to open its door and left it wide open after raiding my glove box too, possibly looking for sat navs, and then believe it or not, last night this woman's Astra that was towed near by to be looked at also got broken into as the thief or gang of theives who have been operating in mine and adjoining streets managed to break Astra's rear quarter window, but could not gain accesss due to dead locking, every car that was broken into (rear quarter window smashed) and tried to gain entry but failed as all doors were dead locked.
The woman was suggesting scrapping this 1.6 Astra if the repairs may be major issue and expense such as if the cam belt broke, and now the additional expense with a new set of keys, hence unless we can gain access to inside without breaking one of the main side windows to jump in and only then my mechanic mate knows someone who can make him a duplicate key but he also needs the ignition collar to programe the chip, I have an idea to defeat the dead locking by drilling out the black plastic door handle that holds the lock barrel and the pull handle, (not drilling the barrel as that would be ruined beyond use) but we can always get a new plastic door handle moulding, and gaining access to a microswitch that releases the dead locking which is normally operated by the door key. this might work out cheaper than to actually break the side windows to jump in and open then bonnet and remove the ignition collar etc.
Once we gain entry, we can open bonnet and see if the cam belt is intact, if it is only then we may proceed to get a new set of keys made and sort out her non starting issues. Otherwise she is going to scrap this W reg Astra 1.6l in silver car, all doors and side panels appears in good nick.