MX-3.com

Hi

I've had my MX-3 since 2005, nowdays I've put it up for sale. (it's a 1995 1.8 no sun roof )
I bought another car (a RX-8), which sits in my garage, my MX-3 sits outside awaiting to be sold (easier for potential buyers to get a good look at it too.

Well anyway, the car has been sitting outside for just about a month now, we've had a sh**y summer here, so it has rained a lot.
So, here the other day, I opened the door to check some papers in it (hadn't been inside it for about a week), and this sour smell was hitting me...phew!

Started checking about and found the carpet in the trunk to be really wet, I lifted that and saw that the spare tire was almost flooded by water(!)

I've never seen this before, I haven't done anything special either to provoke a leak in the gaskets etc.
- The roof, sides and the back of the back seat was dry, so it seems like the water came in from the back end, probably low somewhere.

So, I dried it out (isn't there a plug or something to drain it with btw?) and dried out the cover that lies on top the spare tire, then I took it to the car wash.

First, I rinsed it with a high pressure hose from the back end of the roof, hosing down the openings for the hatch towards the tail lights, to test the gaskets a little.
Crawled inside the car to check for leakage, nothing.

Then I flushed the gas filler opening (with the lid closed), inside the weel holes and over the tail lights, I also hosed the licence plate area pretty hard from the underside.
Checked car, nothing.

Really weird, so I waited a bit and then checked again, this time, I saw a small puddle forming in the left corner, just below the tail lights (you know, where the top cover left flap goes).
The water came in from behind the panels, so it was impossible to tell where the leak itself was.

My spare tire well is clean, no rust at all, so it seems that the leak is pretty new, there is a little rust and grime in the back left corner where the water is coming in, but it is very minimal.

Does anyone have any idea where the water may leak in from? (I suspect the tail lights some where but I am no mechanic).

The gasket around the back hatch seems to be in ship-shape, its soft and fresh to the eye and to the touch, so it doesn't really seem likely that it is the culprit.

I would hate to sell a car with this kind of problem (sorting it out with a bit of silicone would be better if possible).

I have red some threads around the Internet where some mx-3's leak from the sun roof, but I don't have one, so that is out.
I've seen one thread on this forum, probably pointing towards a bad gasket around the back hatch, but mine seems to be fine, the water also seem to come in from behind the panels, not from the gasket area.

Any good pointers? (I am no mechanic, so my skills with cars are pretty low).

Kind regards

Z
Oslo, Norway

i was having a similar problem with a random leak near my rear washer fluid tank. it would overflow and spill onto my rear passenger side seat and cause the seat to get wet and moldy. i never found where it was coming from but to stop it from happening i just drilled a couple holes under the washer tank and sprayed my entire trunk (interior) with undercoating.it hasnt rained very much since i did it so im not sure if it fixed the problem but im pretty confident in it. im not saying to go as far as spraying the entire trunk with undercoating like i did. but a couple small drain holes where the water is pooling should hurt anything. maybe a bit of rust paint where you drilled would be a good option.

btw the drain plugs are in the spare tire well. theres 2 large rubber circles. if you push them hard enough theyll just pop out the bottom of the car.

Thank you for the answer, indeed, I checked the trunk again, and now I saw the rubber thingies, wish I knew it before I started to get the water out using just a rag, haha!

I did a tear down of the left inner trunk panels last Saturday, to really get to the bottom of the issue with the leak, and I found that there was a small hole coming in from the left tail light area, leaking water into the trunk. (could see traces where the water had ran down the inner wall).

After taking off and inspecting my left tail light and tail light attachment on the car, I found that some lazy mechanic had laid a wire on the outside of the round gasket, where all the wiring from the tail light normally go trough the middle.
This had created a gap in the seal, but I could not get it tight and snug due to the wire going on the outside. (I wouldn't want to cut the wire and try to force it into the hole in the middle of the gasket at this point in fear of destroying something).

So what I ended up doing, was to lay plenty of clear silocone gel around the gasket and into the gap, so as to create a nice seal.

I haven't had the time to check if I stopped the leak yet though (no rain and I have been busy, so I haven't had it at the car wash either).
Will check tonight and see if this fixed the problem, I really hope so, would be a shame to sell the car with a flaw like this.

Regards =)