"Locking actuator?"
 

When I picked up my car last week ($2,000 worth of worth) I was told that some kind of a loking actuator had gone bad and needs to be replaced. When I lock the doors, I hear this LOUD noise coming from the passenger side. I'd never heard it when I brought the car in. It doesn't happen when I unlock the car which is weird. The noise is loud enough to make an echo hehe. It looks like everything is working fine (doors are locking properly and such) but it's just this noise that doesn't make sense. Now I'm thinking something needs to be lubed but the dealer doesn't want to bother and wants to just replace it. I kind of don't trust the dealer estimates after the estimate they gave me for fixing my top. It looks like the dealer just wants to replace components and not even bother fixing them.

According to the dealer, the noise is caused by the driver's side door latch part# 3B1 837 016 E. Upon closer inspection, I found out that the noise is coming from around the gas lid, more specifically, the plastic pin that locks the lid when i lock the door. THe loud noise can only be heard when I lock the car. I sprayed some lubricant on it but the noise didn't go away. Could it be the selenoid that is worn?

Hey let me know what happens with this. I am experiencing the exact same thing. Noise coming from the locking mechanism when locking the doors. It is definetly the gas cap lock that is creating the noise. For me it ionly does it about 1 out of 5 times I lock the car. Let me know if you get it fixed how much it costs. :)

I can probably fix it if I knew how to expose the part for examination. It isunder the right fender and I don't know how to get to it.

Well I tried accessing the actuator but it was impossible. FIrst I had to remove the right wheel then take off the big plastic cover under the fender. When the plastic piece was out of the way, I could see the actuator but there are a lot of obstacles in the way. It is ( I think) impossible to replace that thing without either taking out the fender or taking some black tank which happens to be in the way. I couldn't take off that tank although I unscrewed the nut but it seems like there is another nut some I can't see. where. SO I just took a short-cut and saved myself sometime, I yanked out the cable that connects to the actuator (didn't damage the anything becuase it clips in easily). I figured I don't need to lock my gas door anyway.

This is happening to me as well right now!
What should I do to fix this problem??? Is their any fix? :(