Evening, folks.
Our coupe's central locking has lately been erratic; the hatch started taking eternity and much groaning to release, then fob button usage started flashing the lights but not changing lock status upon key fob press, and now fob buttons do nothing - I suspect water damage to the trunk's central security module /locking pump. The hatch did randomly unlock last night, but it was too cold (and late) in our Chicagoland driveway to start pulling trim to get the foam piece out to examine the module.

So son Max has been manually locking passenger door and then key-locking the driver door at school. However, tonight was a very minor disaster - he was 15 miles away with the low fuel warning light on when he discovered the fuel door had locked, and central unlocking was still inoperative. Lucky for the two-gallon reserve (or very conservative warning light), he got home fine (at a slightly lower pace than usual).

Anyway, thanks to this excellent thread and images, we soon had the skinny teen dive into the rear. We started removing those black pop-up fasteners when I had an idea. He pulled the inside fuzzy panel flap (that lets you change taillight lamps), looked forwards and outwards with a flashlight to follow the yellow pneumatic line, and was able to see (and actuate!) the red manual lock release handle to release the fuel door. This saved him time messing with the trim fasteners and panel in a confined, cold place, so I offer this method to anyone else to use when fuel addition is urgently needed and no tools readiliy available.

And skinny teens aren't too hard to find...vaguely remember being one myself.

P.S. = Moderators: buried in regional might not be the best place for this thread...