I am in the process of car shopping for a 99 - 00 EK hatch. I stumbbled across a relatively clean, good prices, manual hatch that is on the lot of a local Ford dealer. Upon checking the hatch area, there is a puddle in the spare tire area!! I mean, like easily one full cup of water!! The only area where the water can be coming from is the hatch. Is it common for the EK to have leaky hatch? After inspection, i do not think the car was in any kind of accident as all the paint on the car is original. Any input would be great.

 

i ran into that prob jus a few days ago. i only a few spots of water tho, nothin near a cup of it. i'm still tryin to find where it's comin from.

 

Sorry...should of searched before asking. Apparently, this is a common problem and the rear tailight gasket is causing the leak.

https://honda-tech.com/zerothread?id=320926

 

its really common among 96-00 hatches, you need to change that seal behind the taillights

 

After reading that other thread, it seems like a pretty easy fix. Anyone thought of getting flat sheets of rubber and cutting a gasket out of that and sandwhicing the stock gasket in there somewhere? Just a thought...anyways, good luck with your fix

 

i never had that probably, until i bought 99-00 tailights that i THOUGHT was OEM, cause i want the clear part, instead ot he amber part on the 96-98, anways, i found like a pool of water in my hatch, spare tire area. put my oem 96-98 back on and it never happend again.

 

yeah, i also had this problem...i took it to the shop and had them seal it up. Hopefully, the problem is solved...it hasn't been raining lately. Now, i have condensation in my tailights.

 

Hmmm....I couldnt believe that someone else was having this problem too!i ACtually thought it was from when we put on a new 1/4 panel for my car , and we sorta melted the drain hose from the sunroof to the like under the car behind the rear tire!Hmmm still could be the problem, but i never really thought aboput the taillamp gasket!didnt think it could get that much water, i mean i have **** loads of water bak there!!!!Everyone knows, like when you get into "Rocky's Car" you dont wanna sit in the bak, and if you do you have to sit on the sweaters i have laid back there in order to not get your *** soaking wet!....but yea imma check out thte gaskets today and maybe that will be the problem!Im talking about like lots of water enough to make its way to the back seats! like you know when you lifdt up the rear seats, u have that sheet metal well if you touch the metal its sorta got moisutre on it.but the hatch is really wet inside not really a puddle but everything is wet!

 

check your taillights, sometimes on the ek's the taillights let water in, i had the same thing happen to me! hope that helps all i did was tighten them down and it solved the problem.