Hi everyone, I was driving home last night and theres a particularly rough patch of road getting on the belt parkway by coney island avenue with plenty of potholes, so long story short, now i have an error message that says tighten gas cap. I've tried first obviously to open and tighten the gas cap, but after repeated attempts its not working. Anyone else ever have this problem? I really don't want to go to a dealership over something this dumb, but i also don't want this to be a potential problem. Any advice would be much appreciated.

 

I had this problem as well... It went away after a couple of days. I'd say give it a week, and if the light is still there, then go to the dealer.

 

Make sure you tighten the gas cap at least 3 clicks after a fill up. Usually the message goes away after 3 fill ups. If not, it could really mean a defective gas cap.

If you can't wait for the message to disappear, sometimes you can borrow a scan tool from a auto store, i.e. Pepboys or AutoZone, to clear the message.

 

The "tighten fuel cap" message came on my tsx after it had it's annual state inspection. I always make sure I do at least 3 clicks on the gas cap. The message did not go away so while getting the car serviced-the dealer checked it out, found nothing wrong and reset the code (no charge)

 

I've had it to. As luck would have it, I was taking it in for an oil change a few days later. They checked the evap system at the dealer and didn't find a problem. The message had actually gone away the night before. They did change out the gasket in the gas cap though.

There have been a few threads on this before, and I'm not the only one who's had the seal replaced.

 

i just came back from the dealership for that exact reason and they said they want $110 for a diagnostic. i told him to give my keys back and i left. lol. there is no chance im payin $110 to get that fixed. im try to contact the manager because i had a vsa light that came on about a month ago and they fixed that for free but they want me to pay for this.

 

You have to tighten the gas cap and wait a few days. It'll eventually go out on its own. I think the owner's manual even states that it will take a few days.

 

not necessarily- After mine stayed on over a month with numerous gas fills and almost 3,000 miles, I had the dealer check it out and they reset it. That was January 5th and it has stayed off (knock-on-wood)

 

the light went off a little while ago, in the middle of driving somewhere. Thanks for the help, in general its mad annoying to have an error light on all the time, funny story, everytime someone short sits in my passenger seat and leans towards the window the passenger airbag turns off and i get the side airbag message too........maybe i should check that out

 

The side airbag turning off is normal. The occupancy system is detecting that they're in the path of deployment of the side airbags and turns them off to prevent additional injury. They cover it in the OM.