It worked! Thank you for all of your very helpful information.

 

No problem, glad I could help.

 

well, It happend to me. Saturday I went to put gas in the car and gas door didn't open. I tried looking in back for the place to open it but I couldn't and it was cold and I had a trunk full of cargo.

I pulled up the drivers door sill where the keylock is and the lever to open the gas door. I found the cable, and while holding it firmly so it didn't move, I pushed down on my lever and opened my door. I will getting the repair piece mentioned earlier in this thread. But at 23.25 for a pice of plastic they sure are gouging people. OUCH.

 

Poor Tom! That stinks. I guess most of these repairs would be under warranty, though, wouldn't you think?

 

Not at 50K and 4 years. I think these parts are 36K 3 years. I think I'll try oem first and try to fix it that way and if all else fails I'll buy that plastic coupler.

I'm betting it is just fatigue in the plastice brought on by it getting brittle in the cold temps.

At any rate I'm still happy with my car. We made it to Detroit for the NAIAS Press days and got some good info (which will be posted at www.cleanmpg.com - minor plug for my site). Talked to a lot of companies about their plans for alternative powered vehicles. Saw the Volt in person and talked to the director in charge of its development. Lots of good stuff.

I would have probably missed all that if it weren't for the original poster. So again, thanks for starting this thread!

 

I had this same thing happen to me a couple of weeks ago when it was extremely cold and I was 300 miles out of warranty. The release cable has a button on the end that retracts and allows the fuel door to release. It merely needs a quarter of a turn to release the cable end from it's holder and the gas door will spring open. I rigged mine with a couple of hose clamps. Everything works fine, but there is a little more bind in the cable than when it was new. I may eventually buy one of those plastic capsules shown earlier, thanks for that link. Does anyone know the cost on a new cable?

 

About $55 not including labor.

 

I drive a 2005 Civic Hybrid and 2 months ago had the stuck fuel door problem that others described here. I brought it to the local dealer and they quoted a price of $365 to fix. No thanks I said. Went home, pried fuel door open with popsicle sticks and screwdriver so I could put gas in it. Wrote a long letter to U.S. Honda, explaining why I thought it outrageous that I should have to pay for this malfunction (My car has 48,000 miles on it so it was beyond warranty). They were very responsive and helpful and said bring it to the dealer and they'll take care of it, which they did. No charge! So write a letter, it's always worth a shot.

 

I did end up buying the aftermarket plastic kit. It seems to have worked. Pretty simple install even if the plastic piece was a tad expensive for what it is.

 

I usually don't post on forums but I registered just to post here, I had this fuel door thing happen to me this morning I found this site and it gave me the idea to look in the trunk. Its kind of hinted at in the posts but here is a QUICK SOLUTION:

go in the trunk and look under the liner on the side where the fuel door is. Right where the fuel door is you'll see a cable winding around this is the door release. Follow it until it gets to the fuel door then where it meets play with that part by turning and pulling and eventully it will come out and your fuel door will pop open. This is good enough for now. You can either fix it later with the plastic piece mentioned, talk to honda about paying for it or you can also see on the fuel door there is a small metal clip the keeps it from closing
completely (also what causes it to pop open) its very easy to remove by prying with a small screw driver. After that the door will close and just require a key or something to easily pry open everytime. Since I don't really think I need a "locked" fuel tank I'm just going to leave it like that for now and perhaps indefinatly.


ok thats it I'm not replying to any more posts or pm or anything this forum just helped me a little to now miss a day of work and its a very annoying problem so hopefully by posting this I can help someone else avoid the headaches. Other then this door thing I think civics are the best cars in the world.