2005 Prius - Fuel Door Failure

[castalusoria]

*grumble* I try to stop last night for cheap gas whilst I've still got two fuel "bars" left. Pull into gas station, pull lever on floor to pop open fuel door, and... nothing. No amount of lever-pullage will pop open the fuel door. Drive from cheap gas to house of friends where I'm crashing for the evening, elect to deal with it in the morning

Comments

[ossie]

try having someone pull the cable while you are prying the door with a comb or something plastic, maybe the spring is broken,

if its a cable issue, you might be able to use something plastic to try to release the lever at the gas door,

or go in the trunk and see if you can reach the cable from under the panels, if you remove the stuff on the left side you might be able to see the cable and sometimes pulling on the cable itself might release it,

some dealers are open for service on Sundays but most would be closed by now, or you could call a Californian dealer tollfree and ask someone there, since its still early enough

[parrot_lady]

I actually had this problem. For me it took two people to solve it. One pulls the fuel door lever on the inside, the other tries to open the door-you may try using a screwdriver-flatblade- in a thin sock to stop paint damage, or similiarly a few credit cards.. My problem was that my plastic gas cap cord/retainer was stuck on the mechanism to open it. I took my multi tool from the center console and CUT the damn thing off, and its opened smoothly ever since

[castalusoria]

Yep, that's exactly what I ended up doing (took a while for my 2nd pair of hands to return!), and that was exactly what had happened. Lesson learned!