Every Honda Civic eventually starts accumulating water in the trunk or hatch, which fogs the windows and is VERY annoying. I show you how to fix the problem on 1996-2000 Civics, but 1992-1995 are similar
Just had a crazy rain storm here in NorCal. Heard water in the trunk and lo and behold half the spare tire covered in water. Gonna try this out in a few days, thanks!!
Good luck, Matt. My advice: buy the OEM Honda gaskets. I've used those and some aftermarket ones. The Honda brand worked much better and lasted longer. Seems like I've had to replace these every 5-8 years.
Great video, I thought the water was coming from these 2 holes at the back as I could see the road through them. Steel sticked them up and parked outside in the snow. When it melted, a whole bunch more water pooled up inside the hatch. This will be my next move. Cheers
Not only taillamp. Ventilation sealing right under taillamp is leaking too. To see it, fix it you must remove all internal trim from the trunk. Then just pop it out with fingers (2 plastic clips), apply silicone or any other waterproof sealant and put it back. You don't need to remove bumper or lift up the car, you can do it just with lying down under rear bumper and from trunk inside.
I bought mine on Ebay. Lots of sellers and options there. Didn't find any on Amazon. You could also contact your Honda dealer but those will cost a lot more.
What if you do all of this and there is still water in the trunk? I always thought it was the hatch back where the water gets in. A mechanic told me to seal the hatch and glass with silicone. What else could it be?
It's hard to know what else it could be. this is definitely a very common source of water ingression. Anywhere around the hatch all the way to the decal (if it's missing) could be a source. I recommend drying everything out, then hosing the car from the outside all over. Then, from the inside without opening the hatch, see if you can find any water. Trace the water up from there to see if you can find the source.
I had this issue when I first purchased my CX hatch. I replaced the rear tail light gaskets with new ones from Honda, siliconed them to the lights but not to the car and still had severe leaking. I found that the majority of the water was actually coming from the cabin vents under the tail lights. They have a poor gasket design (no more than a strip of thin foam tape) that allows water pooling which then runs into the car. I removed the vents, cleaned them well, put some gasket maker/sealer on the gasket and reassembled. I never had any leaking, not even a drip after that. If I had to do some again I'd probably use butyl cord/strip caulk instead of the gasket maker/sealer as it never dries.
