gas door noyt locking

[lowlows18]

hey ways up everyone .. i have a 01 4.4i and i notice the pin doesnt come out to lock the gas door.. everything else locks and unlocks fine.. im guessing its the actuator.. anyone know how i go about changing this? thanks

[TerminatorX5]

the pin should lock on double locking only - you tried to lock with remote, and it did not come out?

[lowlows18]

i tried with the remote and with the key and yes i know u have to double lock

[tmv]

The actuator is bad or it's un-plugged by accident.
You can lock the X, so I think it went bad on the PO and he/she had it un-plugged to have remote lock/unlock again.

[lowlows18]

yea im guessing its the actuator also .. it was working a couple of months ago.. my question is does anyone have a diy to replace it

[romeokc10]

I'll play devils advocate here, if it were my car I wouldn't go through the trouble of trying to fix it. How many cars have locking gas doors, not many, if you live somewhere where you're worried about someone stealing gas out of your car, then you have bigger issues, in other words you need to move...lol!!

[Qsilver7]

Originally Posted by lowlows18

yea im guessing its the actuator also .. it was working a couple of months ago.. my question is does anyone have a diy to replace it

Do you know where it's located? Have you had a chance to look to see if anything is blocking it etc?

I ask, because I know that the e39 & e38 forums have discussed the fuel filler door actuator (a lot)...and since the e53 is a generational cousin to...more than likely BMW uses the same actuator, or one similar to it...and it's probably located in the same place (since the flap is located in the same right rear quarter panel).

Yep, pulled up the diagram and its in the same location as the 5 & 7 series (see item # 18 in the diagram):

RealOEM.com * BMW E53 X5 4.4i SIDE PANEL/TAIL TRIM

I bet if you open the cargo area pull down door, you probably can see the actuator...and it would be so easy to do, if no one else has done an e53 DIY...you could be the first.

You may even find (as some already mentioned) that the electrical connector to the actuator may have been pulled off.

Below is the actuator from the e38 7 series...a quick part # search shows that the e53 (up to 3/2006) uses the same actuator as the e34 5 series...so the part nbr is different than the e38, but it looks the same:

[lowlows18]

Thank you. I will check tomorrow before work.

[tmv]

You'd have to remove some paddings to get to it, IIRC. It's been awhile since I unplugged it on my daughter's X5.