This is terrible advice. You only lose the gas cap key if you lose all your keys, and frankly, only a freaking idiot would lose their keys. And the gas caps, in my experience, don’t ever break. I’ve had a locking cap on both my '72 Eldo and my '78 Blazer for well over 10 years, and never lost a key or had a cap break in any way.
And a locking cap would prevent the one-in-a-bajillion asshat who wants to pour Karo into your gas tank. At about $20, it’s not like it’s an expensive accessory.
Ummm… HELLO! Mad Max.
I can see the movie now – a professional gas siphoner who wants to retire, but is pushed by his fence to make one last big score. And he’s stuck with teaching this newbie gas siphoner, who’s the hot chick niece of the fence. And they have to fashion this specialized hose and run this elaborate charade to distract the driver of gas tank truck that they plan to siphon empty.
I could go on and on…
I’ve had the exact same experience. My family’s various 80’s through 00’s Fords have never had a locking gas door. The only car I can think of that may have had them were the early 80’s Buick boats my brother had for a while.
My 2001 Accord has a locking fuel door that has a nifty feature. The lever for the fuel door is the same lever as the one that opens the trunk. All I have to do to lock both to prevent access by valets or friends is to use the ignition key. It’s nice. 
Nobody ever claimed there were roving bands of people targeting entire parking lots, that’s just a silly strawman. It wasn’t an organized crime thing. The problem, at least as reported, was individuals targeting one or two vehicles in order to fill their own tank. Most likely someone who needed gas on an odd day when their plate number was even (or vice versa), or someone who simply couldn’t afford to fill their tank.
As I recall the incidents were followed by the introduction of locking caps. Locking doors were a later thing and I really doubt that they were invented in anticipation of a fuel shortage which could then be exploited with false reports of siphoning. I suppose it’s possible that sellers of locking gas caps may have hyped the phenomenon but I doubt that it was invented out of whole cloth.
In any case, here are some contemporary examples of thieves siphoning gas. They’re just a few of what can be found with a quick googling.
http://www.andersonvalleypost.com/news/2010/nov/10/suspect-runs-after-siphoning-gas-for-a-stolen/
However, as others have pointed out, gas theft isn’t the biggest issue here. If **Morgenstern ** is correct, and I have no reason to doubt him, then it’s a difficult thing to do with a modern car. Anyway, I could withstand the loss of what my 10 gallon tank can hold.
There is, however, an issue of vandalism to be considered. There are people who seem to have a hatred of hybrids for some reason. Granted they can take it out in other ways but I’d rather deal with a key scratch or slashed tire than a ruined engine because some asswipe poured something in the gas tank.
That said, it’s unlikely that I’ll experience either thing. It just ticked me off that a high tech car with a plethora of features included as standard would skimp on something like this.
The first time I went to fill up the tank on my new Fit, I pulled up to the pump, opened my door, and scanned the floor area for the little lever. Then scanned under the steering wheel. Maybe on the console somewhere? Got out, looked at the little door, got back in, poked around some more… finally pulled my manual from the glove compartment and started searching through it. I was frustrated and getting a little panicky because it was 11pm and February, so I was cold and tired. The guys inside the station must have thought I had lost my mind.
When I finally figured it out, I felt like a moron.
Antigen,
I only found out about the gas tank cover because I read some complaints about it on an Insight forum. I probably would have been stymied like you the first time I tried to put gas in it (something I haven’t had to do yet).
I did, however, have an experience similar to yours the first time I tried to open my rear hatch.
[ul][li]No key hole.[]No rear hatch remote button on the key.[]No apparent release lever inside.[/ul][/li]WTF? 
I had to RTFM (read the fucking manual). The rear hatch unlocks when you unlock the passenger doors. You then have to reach into a recess on the hatch and depress a button. This nearly deserves a pitting in itself. There’s no easy way to manually unlock the damned hatch. The manual gives some instructions involving a screwdriver and a plate on the inside side of the hatch. Why not just have an accessible release lever on the inside?
So the guy who irrationally hates hybrids so much that he will adulterate your gas with the intent of destroying your engine will be unwilling to jam a screwdriver into the fuel door and pry it open? Even evil has standards, I guess.
For cripes sake people. Why the hostility? If you don’t like the rant, just leave it alone.
I know that it’s unlikely that any of this will happen to me. I already said that. I also know that there are other ways for people to steal fuel or mess with cars.
If you’re all so hostile to the idea of sensible security precautions because they can be defeated, then why lock the car at all? Why have door locks? They can be defeated, so what’s the point?
Maybe this should have gone in MPSIMS then?
I think this is the key phrase - for me and my own car, it wasn’t sensible at all; it was a solution to a problem that for all intents and purposes didn’t exist, and its existence caused problems for me the owner on a regular basis.
In contrast, cars getting stolen and being stolen from are measurable, existing phenomena; and for what little help door locks may provide against a determined thief, they at least function properly and do not inconvenience the owner.
When the linkage between my fuel door release lever and the gas cap cover on my old Mitsubishi Diamante broke, I had some panic moments until I figure out how easy it was to release the latch from the outside with a screwdriver. Fortunately, I’d already learned never to drive a Mitsubishi Diamante more than 2.5 miles without bringing along a tool kit, so it wasn’t a problem.
I can remember watching my boss drop the fuel tank on on a car to remove the broken locking gas cap. I do not ever remember him removing Karo from a gas tank.
You’re fueling a needless paranoia here.
They make them with combination locks.
Hell, I had petrol siphoned from my car some years ago. I could hardly afford it then.
The car I recently hired in Ireland came without a manual included. It is great fun pulling up in the rain at a service station and realising you don’t have a clue how to unlock the fuel tank on a vehicle you have never heard of…
I usually perform my fucking in The Pit as well. Girlfriend does not approve of the euphemism.
It’s not just that it can be defeated, it’s that defeating them is trivial. The siphoner is already carrying a multitude of tools to get your gas, I would expect him to have a screwdriver to pop your lock. He’s already going to spend a few minutes at your car to get the gas, an extra 3 seconds to pop the door is nothing.
You get an illusion of security with a device that costs a non-trivial amount of money to implement. If you get real security, with a locking gas cap, then you risk massive inconvenience and cost if the cap ever fails to unlock, while preventing a vanishingly rare petty crime.
I’ll also mention that by defeating your petty criminal with this security, you also open yourself up to petty retaliation, such as getting a screwdriver drawn across your paint, costing you hundreds of dollars to fix, instead of $30 to refill your tank.
I don’t like them just because it gets so snap-er-ass cold here that it’s one more thing I would have to worry about freezing.
I am not rich, but that extra few minutes in the minus forty is worth anyone siphoning my gas.
My 1993 Accord too.