Owners manual says lub the hinges, locks, and latches. Dealer does not sell anything to do this. They say do not do anything unless they break. I called Honda and they said to buy the lub from the dealer. When I told them what the dealer said they were going to look into it and call me back. They never did. I wrote them a letter and got NO reply.
I want to keep car ALAP (as long as possible) I am doing all the preventitive maintence. Should I lub the locks and what should I use. The car is four years old. I have been lubing the latches abd hinges with grease, but not the locks.
I think powdered graphite lubricants are what’s most commonly recommended for locks. Most auto parts stores sell small tubes of the stuff.
I use it on my vehicles, and it does seem to remedy stiffness in the lock without any negative side effects that I’ve noticed.
I think (hopefully I’ll be corrected if I’m wrong) that the main reason one doesn’t want to put something like grease in a lock is that the dirt & grit that grease inevitably collects would eventually foul the lock.
I use a silicone based lube that is explicitly listed as safe for plastics on hinges and such. (You never know where it ends up.) But graphite is best for the lock cylinder.
Don’t ever use WD-40 or other lightweight oils for these situations. They will dry up, clog, go sticky, etc.
I know that you can get spray-in graphite lock lubricant from the hardware store. The carrier eventually evaporates, leaving the graphite to do its job.
I work at a ford dealer and ford makes something called lock lubricant which I’ve seen free up cylinders that wouldn’t even turn before. To lube your hinges you can use white grease in a spray can. It works well but will leave a messy looking residue.
You needn’t go to a hardware store, either. I found a tube of car-lock graphite at a supermarket in their quarter-of-one-side-of-the-aisle tiny carware section. It even had a picture on the front of a car lock.
Don’t use graphite, it is a black powder that will stain anything you get it on, and keys touch your hands, your clothes, ect. Don’t use anything with moly-sulfide either, it is even worse. What you want is teflon lubricant. One type I know of is Remington gun lube that comes in a spray can. It sprays out as a clear liquid, but the liquid part evaporates quickly leaving behind a very fine white dust–and the white dust basically doesn’t stain anything visibly.
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