I bought a 1999 seville sls and when you try to use the power locks or power trunk they dont work as well as the gas tank lid wont pop open you have to open the trunk with the key and pull the handle to open the gas tank. Also the fuel gauge dosnt work it stays at E. I was wondering if anybody knew anything that would be the problem before I go take it to the dealership and spend more than I need to trying to fix the problem. Any info would be greatly appreciated.

 

I don't have your model, but I presume your lock system is driven electronically, rather than pneumatically. Working forward from that assumption, I will suggest the following:

Have you looked for a blown or absent fuse? Perhaps the prior owner "borrowed" a fuse from your lock circuit, to benefit a different circuit.

It's important that fuses are not replaced with fuses of higher amperage rating, lest your wires and/or appliances burn. If lower amperage rated fuses are used as replacements, you'll have nuisance outages. Meanwhile, keep in mind that fuses blow for a good reason, generally. And the nastiest problems are intermittent, making them indeed hard to discover. In this event, which is not uncommon, the troubleshooter has to have a good sense of where to look, so he can confirm his prior suspicions at precious moments of intermittent failure.

My guess is, though, that given your car's relative "youth," intermittency is not so likely. Rather, there might be a hard fault in a solenoid, or even a pinched wire, which is causing your fuse to blow. So instead of mindlessly replacing blown fuses, only to see the replacements blow in similar fashion, a trace must be undertaken. And look for environmental causes, like water leakage into a solenoid, causing its demise. Meanwhile, a milli-ohmmeter or similar fine detection scheme is therefore in order... and a wiring diagram is essential to anyone who doesn't already have the wiring details memorized.

As a comment, I doubt that the "dealer" is your best troubleshooter, here. He will likely use the "strategic" (i.e, "atomic bomb") approach, at your great expense, rather than the "tactical" (pin-point) remedy. Find yourself a skilled electrical technician, by working the auto repair community. Beat the sidewalks, if necessary. Your "gasoline alley" crowd will know who the maven of wiring troubleshooting is. In fact, the maven might enjoy the challenge... and the several hundred dollars is might cost to fix your problem.

Meanwhile, if your lock system is pneumatic (e.g., Mercedes), even one diaphragm rupture can spoil the lot. That's a parallel phenomenon, distantly analagous to a shorted electrical node. Divide and conquer (non-destructively), in either event. And look for a severed vacuum SOURCE... not mere loss at the load end.

The joker in the electrical deck is the faulty ground. That is probably not relevant to your case, but always warrants cognizance of an alert technician.

Good luck,
JohnPeter, electrical engineer