Lots of rain around here and today I opened the trunk of my 97 A4 and noticed the carpet wet in the corners near the taillights. Do the tailight gaskets get leaky on these cars? Any other areas to check where water might have gotten in. The trunk seal gasket looks in great condition.

Is the best place to get tailight gaskets the dealer (can any one recommend an online parts store)?

TIA

 

i've yet to hear of this problem. pour some water down that channel by the trunk seal and see where the water goes. as for the tail light gasket, any large and thin rubber piece will work but if you absolutely want the oem piece then the dealership rappage route is the only road to take

 

When I bought my car there was water in the spare tire well but thats because there was a chunk missing from the weather stripping at the top of the trunk. Seems odd that the water would puddle near the tail lights and not in the spare tire well, unless it were coming from the tail lights... I say x2 to what hiwords suggested, pour some water into the channels of your trunk and see where it goes, shouldn't be too tough to track down the leak. Also be sure to post up what you find, i'm interested to hear what happens

 

Well I hid in the trunk and parked it out in the rain. Water has collected in the spare tire well. Its not rusty so this is a new(er) problem. The taillight gaskets seem to be ok....but I didn't stay in the trunk long ona 30 dgeree rainy day with the trunk all wet.

First leak was evident, its right in the middle of the edge of the trunk kinda near the driver side speaker on the edge lip of the window frame. There is no problem with the trunk gasket. Only place I can think of is its working its way in around the rear window somewhere and leaking down the frame into (around the edge of the trunk near the rear window)???!!! Or it could be the sunroof drain(s)

I'll do more work on it once i get the trunk dried out and can lay in there for a period of time and watch the tailight gaskets and clean the sunroof drains with some cable. Driver side tool well is much more wet than passenger side.

 

lol did you say you hid in the trunk?

 

....I did notice a chunk out of the trunk gasket on the right side of the gasket it appears to be on the inside on the trunk though. Wondering if somehow water is getting into that big gasket and working its way down into the trunkl somewhere? Where can I get a gasket that's not from a stealership..?

 

I didn't even replace mine, just bought some black silicone weather stripping adhesive and gooped up the hole lol

 

take off your rear deck to see if it's wet underneath. if it's leaking from the window seal, you should really get it fix right instead of a patch job because a patch job in that area will not hold for long. especially against the weather.

 

I am thinking if its the rear window seal, a windshield repair company should be able to pull the rear glass and reseal it.