Honestly, I bought an OBD-II scanner for 99$ on the internet.
It is worth having.

The port is by your right knee on the drivers side.
The real scan tools will give you a description.
Thats generally enough to play back yard mechanic.

Regardless, if you don't want to deal with it yourself you are at the whim of the dealer, service department guys, being in a good mood or bad mood.

If they are in a bad mood they will blow you off, thats more common than not.

They don't pressure test the cap, of they are getting another evaporative gas leak code or fuel code they should just replace the cap, this is almost always the fix.

 

Whoops, sorry about the bad info, I knew I had some light come on that was not supposed to be there. I've had both come on.

As for your gas cap, I'll try to explain this the best I can. I have the same problem. When I turn my gas cap to tighten it, it goes about 1 turn then starts to click - the problem is its really not tight yet. I have to apply pressure to the outer rim of the cap and squeeze while turning it, thats when it really starts to grip the threads & seal and finally tightens enough to make a real seal. I had my engine light go on three times because my wife doesn't remeber to tighten the cap all the way.

Make sure that cap is ultra tight.

Hope that fixes it.

 

If your up in Milwaukee stop by I'll clear it.

 

The fuel cap basically has it's own built in torque wrench. The idea being that it will slip when it's tight enough so you don't overtighten. Unfortunaly some of the caps are slightly out of spec so they don't tighten enough. Shawn has a solution for his, but a new cap would be easier.

Some light polishing of the outside of the filler neck might help too as it would reduce the friction and allow you to tighten the cap more with less torque.

 

my cap clicks three times but still isnt tight! i have to push in on it and turn with both hands to get tight. so just because your cap clicks three times doesnt mean that it is tight!

 

Worst gas cap ever, my festiva cap has a better seal

 

FWIW I had a check engine light late last year. Dealer told me it was a gas cap issue - so I was f*ckin around with that for a couple of weeks - turns out *something* had eaten through my 02 sensor wires on the cat. why they didnt find that out when they pulled the pcm codes is anyones guess! Good ol' honda service for ya!

 

There was a thread a while back about some gas caps being a little faulty. You can tighten them, but they start clicking when they get hung up on an early thread.

If your cap clicks after less than two full rotations, it's the false click. Lean in on the cap and twist hard and smooth and you'll get through to the next level of tightening. After it clicks there, it's sealed.

Or buy a new gas cap.

 

s'burg.

have had a pretty good relationship with their sales folk (go figure), but am hit/miss w/ service. took my oddy in there for a tranny prob and they were cool with a loaner (incl upgrade since wife needed to haul around a gaggle of kids), and were cool with the repair (gave me a whole new tranny).

but, when we picked the van up, the a/c didnt work.

they forgot to plug a control harness back in.

HELLO!

when i had the s in there for this fuel cap/engine light prob, the young, nubile service writer (never see that before) says "welp, i hope i get to know you better" and then qualifies it in the context of me bringing my car in for service there. i hated to tell her that, while i wouldnt mind getting to know her better, i sure hope it isnt because i'm in the shop with the car all the time. had to recount that convo, as being an old fat guy, those sorta words never seem to come out of young chickies.

luckily, my 10 year old is still not quite cognizant of what goes on around him to have fulfilled his mission to my wife in mentally recording and recounting that conversation to her.



thanks all for the suggestions - will have to start scouring ebay for a reader like dezoris has (unless anyone knows of a patch cable + software that'll allow me to do the same thing using a laptop - that'd be killer!) in replacing the gas cap, is that a universal thing? i mean, heck, ill take the one off my oddy and try it for a while and see what happens.