Fuel door hinge problems?

[themrfreeze]

Hi all.I'm curious if anybody has had problems with their fuel door hinge breaking. The hinge on my '04 Vibe is partially broken (2 months after the warranty expired, no less).The mount that attaches to the body of the car has two thin metal tabs protruding from it that form part of the hinge with the door itself. One tab is broken completely, and the other isn't in the greatest shape.I suppose that getting a new mount will eventually be in order, although I suspect that the whole door/mount assembly is sold as one unit. It appears to fasten to the car with two fasteners, but they don't look like rivets or screws to me. Could be that they screw in from the inside of the car, and what I'm seeing are the tips of the screws. Anybody know for sure?TIA for any info!

[blake31]

yes, i had the same thing happen on my '04. the top hinge broke. luckily, mine broke during warranty, so they fixed it for me, although they were slightly reluctant, accusing me of being too rough on it. c'mon, it pops open and then i push it closed when i'm done... it's not like i slam it closed or anything. seems to me like the hinge is not sturdy enough and could be made thicker.they replaced the whole door, and the paint job is slightly darker than the rest of my car, but you can only tell when it's clean and you look at an angle.

[Whelan]

I'm assuming your hinges are plastic like the Trix. You could strengthen them by wrapping them in a bit of fiberglass with a West System resin dip. That will def. make them stronger.

[blake31]

actually, our gas door hinge is all metal. and it broke like when you take a piece of metal and bend it back and forth until it gives.

[joatmon]

when the gas door is open, you can see the filler tube, with gas cap. Around that is a flexible rubber shield, closes the hole, keeps spills from getting into the car. If you look at the edge of that carefully, you will see that it is held in place by a split metal ring. You can take a pair of needle nose pliers, and pull on one side of the split and remove the ring. Then you can easily push the rubber out of the way to get to the back of whatever it is that holds the door hinge on. I can feel it, but can't find a little mirror to actually see what is on the back side of those two whatevers that attach the hinge to the car.

[themrfreeze]

I was wondering if the (presumably) bolts holding the hinge on can be accessed by removing the interior trim in the cargo area. I suppose that if my hinge fails completely (and I suspect it's only a matter of time until it does), then I'll be finding out if that's the case.I suspect the reason the hinge failed is because I don't have to stop for gas all that often, and the hinge got a little stiff. It's been squeaking when I open it for some time now, but it was only a few days ago that I remembered about it and gave it some oil. The hinge is made from very thin metal, and I'm sure any resistance in the hinge leads that metal to get bent back and forth a bit. Bend it enough times, and it breaks.So be sure to go out tomorrow and put a little oil on your hinge...your Vibe will thank you.

[gtnovosel]

I have the same problem with my '03 GT. Only one of the two hinges in mine have broken so far. I hit the other one with WD40 so it moves freely and so far it has not shown signs of failure.

[JimD]

Yep the fuel door broke on my '04 yesterday. Very bad hinge design and terrible QC during the units assembly. I'm out of warranty maybe 4 months. Not happy.JimMy attempt at repairing my problem.OK, I tried removing the interior trim to gain access to the fasteners behind the fuel door, but that proved useless as there is an internal metal shield under the trim that blocks access to the fuel door area. I put that all back together and only broke one little plastic clip in the process.Time to get the drill out and drill thru the fasteners. That wasn't too difficult and now I have the hinge part from the fuel door completely off and the fuel door as seperate pieces.When they built the fuel door assembly, the tolerance between the actual hinge and the pivot point was way to close together (very close to a press fit) so moisture accumulated during the years which led to rust which led to freezing the hinge to the pivot point which over time proved to be the ultimate failure mode. I opened the remaining metal hinge a bit to make it turn freely again. I'm planning on taking this mess into work on monday to ask maintenance if they came weld the hinge part I removed by drilling the fasteners off back to what remains on the fuel door. More later in a couple days...OK, the maintenance shop was able to weld the hinge back onto the door assembly. the repaired unit is looking good and strong. I've lubricated the assembly and its ready to be reinstalled. All I need is some fasteners, but we will save that for another day.OK, got some 1/4 -20 nuts and bolts at the home depot and installed the door after work tonite. Worked out great and I think its as good if not better then new. Hope this helps someone cause this will happen again to another vibe owner.Jim

[MountainMax]

Mine too is broken, I have a new on on the way, but my question is how did you use bolts and nuts to fix it? how did you get at the nuts behind the area?

[LedFootin]

Quote, originally posted by themrfreeze »Hi all.I'm curious if anybody has had problems with their fuel door hinge breaking. The hinge on my '04 Vibe is partially brokenMine broke too also on an '04 Vibe! It's interesting that I stumbled across this thread. It was my wife's car so of course I didn't notice it till after the warranty but I did notice the fuel door didn't line up right, I should have look closer at that time. If I had realized that this is a common problem I would have contacted Pontiac regional customer service and pitched a *****.

[joatmon]

Quote, originally posted by joatmon » I can feel it, but can't find a little mirror to actually see what is on the back side of those two whatevers that attach the hinge to the car. Finally found a mirror, looked at it again today, and I am pretty sure the two fasteners are large pop-rivets

[JimD]

Drill right thru those fasteners. No worries, its all good.The opening is large enough to get most of your hand in there when reattaching the door suing nuts and bolts. The nuts I used when reattaching the door had the plastic insert in them so they won't ever back off unless I want them to.

[msu90]

Top hinge broke off a month ago on my 03 and now the door looks crooked. The door had been squeaking for a year or so but never fixed it. I'm hoping that it will be OK until it gets warm when I can figure out how to fix it.

[msu90]

update: bottom hinge broke off last week while filling up!Getting a new door and having it installed