The rubber strap that stops the petrol cap getting lost recently broke. It was easy enough to find a supplier for a new petrol cap with this tether but as I only need to replace the strap (and the cheapest "sets" were all out of stock) I found this on eBay for just over £3 delivered. I think the part and petrol cap are common across a range of VAG models.

My problem now is I can't see how to get the old ring off and the new one on as everything is rigid plastic and there are no obvious screws or tabs holding things together.. Before I use brute force and break something I'm wondering if anyone has had to replace this part in the past and what the secret is?

Edited 22 August, 202522 Aug by Paul52

20 minutes ago, Paul52 said:

I can't see how to get the old ring off and the new one on as everything is rigid plastic and there are no obvious screws or tabs holding things together..

A hot air gun, patience and a probe of some sort will do it.

Simple when you know how!!

With a bit of effort the ring to which the tether is attached will pull over the fuel cap. The easy option is to buy a replacement ring and tether and just push the new ring back over the cap and attach the other end of the tether over the small stud by the hinge.

When I did this I found the replacement ring was just slightly larger than the original - only 1mm or so but enough that it annoyed me. I removed it from the cap and pushed out the two small black plastic pins from the old ring, the same with two silver pins from the new ring (just visible alongside the tether in the photo) and put the new tether in the old ring, replaced the pins and put everything back together. Good as new and once you know what to do it's a couple of minutes work.

Couple of minor points - the pins are obviously very small so would be easy to lose as you push them out. I punched them out using a suitably sized rivet into a hole bored into a block of wood so they couldn't get lost. The other thing is to work out which way up the end of the tether goes into the ring - one way everything falls nicely into place when you put it in the car, the other way it's awkward and twisted.

I'm sure that I have added a couple of sellers of them to my eBay "watch" list for when I'll need to buy one or two!