Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General Troubleshooting Soggy Trunk?

I popped the trunk the other day and noticed a fair amount of dampness on the left side. Enough that it is still dripping from the underbody days after the rain? I haven't done much more than checked the trunk gasket, but has anyone had trouble like this before?

check either the rubber seals around the tail lights, or more likely, the filling material behind the red reflector/chrome strip that goes across the trunk... that material falls out, leaving a gap for water to run in.. There is a (more) recent thread with a picture of this, both before and after, floating around here.. I just saw it within the last month or 2..


Ray

Searchy searchy produced:
Stolen from someone

"A lot more help by posting this in the correct topic would help.

The part number is F5RZ54280B62A. It's called a grille. It's not too much work. You need to remove the plastic piece covering the trunk lock area and then remove the carpet on the side of the trunk. To get the plastic
piece off, you need a phillips screwdriver for the four plastic screws (be gentle with the screws). There are also two plastic pop rivet things you need to remove. The carpet is held in place by a plastic screw and two plastic
pop rivets. Once you remove the carpet, you will see the black plastic vent that you just bought. Remove the new gasket from the new vent; unfortunately, you don't use the new plastic vent because you'd have to remove the bumper
to install the whole assembly. The vent snaps into the sheet metal. Remove the old gasket from the old vent, clean the vent and sheet metal as best you can (for a good seal), and then insert the new vent seal into the old vent,
making sure that you insert the curved part of the gasket into the curved part of the vent. Make sure that the new gasket is firmly seated in the vent. This takes some time to work the gasket into the vent because there is
not a lot of room for your hand, but if you are patient, the whole gasket eventually will be well seated in the vent. Snap the vent back into thebody, being sure to position the bottom of the vent in the metal first.
You shouldn't see water leaking through the vent anymore.

I had the same problem until I fixed it recently. I even drove around with the backup bulbs removed because I didn't want them to short out from the puddles of water in the housing.

Although you could have found the solution from doing a search in the forums this is what you have to do. Remove the entire tail light assembly (about 4 nuts and a couple of electrical connections). Then put a few strips of something like 3M Flexible Caulk all along the rubber gasket. You'll sort of form a big rectangle. You can order it from that website but I found some at a local auto parts store.

Some people will say you only need to apply the caulk along the top portion but since the original rubber gasket goes all the way around I went all the way around it too. Since the 3M kit has 20 yards of the stuff I also put it across the entire top edge of the tail light assembly. Don't get it too close to the edge so it doesn't show when you put it back together.

It's been about a month since I did mine and a few heavy rains and the backup lights are still nice and dry. There are other trunk leak issues people have been having with the vents but yours seems to be the gasket area around the lights like mine was."

Before you go buying new parts, check the plastic vents on each side of the trunk. They are known to pop out of place, letting in water. They usually will pop back into place with a little effort. I also found out when trying to correct the sagging(for lack of a better description) on the sides of the bumper, that if you shove a tennis ball in between the bumper and the vent, it will fix the vent problem, as well as the bumper sag.

My SE had the same problem Jason43 described.

I don't know where you are from, but warm temps plus snow, and the tiniest little break in the trunk seal would be enough to get your trunk that wet.

Thanks all, pretty sure it was just the vent on that side out of place a bit. I messed with it some this morning and it feels sealed now, but i guess i wont know till i wash it or it rains. Appologies for asking reduntant questions, but i honestly did run a search on this b4 i posted and couldnt find anything...