My goal for the new year was to write a post a day, but I'm already feeling like that might have been too ambitious.

Today we got out in between the rain for a hike in the headlands. The clouds were alternating dark and light in long bands. It made the light particularly nice, softened but not monotone like it gets under uniform clouds.

On the way back we stopped at Good Earth in Tam Valley for some snacks and a baguette to go with the leftover stew. I dropped the wife and kid off and headed around to the other side to fill up the Mini with good old 91.

Upon getting to the pump, I discovered that the fuel door would not open. I remembered seeing a manual release in the gap between the barn door (it's a Clubman) and the exterior panel, so I tried pulling that. Nothing.

Fortunately we were only a few miles (and several bridge toll dollars) away from home, so I rejected my instinct to force the thing open. I picked up the fam and drove home.

I discovered with some reading that (1) the automatic fuel door locks do fail but it's not very common and (2) the manual release should have worked, as I expected it to.

The rain was still holding, so I jacked up the rear end and with a bit of finagling discovered the problem.

Before I get to that, I'll detail the process for anyone who comes here seeking advice on this issue:

1) Remove the right rear wheel (unless you have a lift this means slightly loosening the lug bolts, jacking up the car, then removing the wheel).
2) Looking from the side, free up about 120 degrees worth of the splash guard starting from the back, enough to tuck the rear end up in front of the rotor. There's some 8mm panel screws and some 10mm plastic nuts securing it.
3) Looking up into the newly exposed wheel well interior, you'll see a large black plastic funnel with a couple of hoses coming off of it. This is the fuel filler neck, you don't need to mess with it.
4) The part we're concerned with is mounted to the plastic shell that fits into the round cutout covered by the fuel door. The shell is really two parts, an outer hard plastic part that clips into the metal panel, and an inner rubber boot that fits around (but is not attached to) the filler neck.
5) In order to expose the lock mechanism, you have to push the plastic shell out from the back. You'll have to do this blind. Start from the rear end, then work your way to the front. I was able to finagle the door open before doing this by fiddling with the manual release which made it easier.

What I discovered was that the manual release cord had been misrouted at some point, and was stuck up in the wiring for the servo. I untangled it, and the lock started working again. The manual release works now too.

At some point in my reading I found that BMW had quit speccing this part with the manual release, and honestly after seeing the setup I'm not surprised. Given the lack of discussion I found on this topic, I have to imagine these little servos are quite reliable, and in the field the cable ends up causing more problems than it solves. If you really have to get your fuel door open, you can always just take a little piece of paracord or even some twisted strands of dental floss, slide it behind the door and break the little plastic nub securing the "lock". Which makes you wonder what the point of all this is anyway.

For the search engines: mini cooper clubman F54 F55 F56 fuel door stuck fix