L O

Hello- Inherited a 2000 TL and the trunk has lots of water. After searching here, I removed the trunk liners and sprayed the moonroof and roof with water- during the spraying, the moonroof drain tubes were bone dry but I did see water seeping into the trunk through the foam gaskets around both taillights, just as quite a few others have noticed. That said (I will caulk the tail lights with RTV), while investigating the problem, from under the car, I see a 1/2" diameter hole under the spare tire well in the center towards the rear- totally open under the car and covered in the trunk by that fiber board thing lining part of the spare tire well (the spare tire well lining material seems to be at least partly porous). Is this hole normal, for "emergency" drainage? It seems a bad idea to have an open hole under the car directly under the trunk- for one, if it is for drainage, it doesn't work, for two, I would think on rainy or snowy/slushy days a fair amount of water could get splashed up into the trunk while driving. I was wondering if there used to be a rubber plug or grommet that has fallen out and should be replaced? (there are several other such grommets in the trunk) I asked the parts counter guys at the Honda dealer (CT) and they said they had no idea. I asked if they could ask a mechanic and they said "they wouldn't know either- they would just look at the same year to see if there is a plug and there aren't cars of that model and year out there". The pdf he showed me didn't show a grommet there but he said "this isn't your exact model, but it should be 'about the same'" (!) (I have no idea why he could pull up the correct pdf.) Any advice here as to whether that hole should be plugged or left open would be greatly appreciated.

frankjnjr

Don't know about the 2000 model year, but my 2003 has no open holes in the spare tire well. Many manufacturers provide a "plugged" hole in the trunk well, just in case a leak should occur. If the spare tire well in your car has an open hole, I would be more concerned with exhaust gas entering the passenger compartment, than i would be about water. Unless the rear portion of the car was submerged in water, it is unlikely any significant accumulation, splashed up by the tires, would cause an issue. For peace of mind, and safety sake, I would plug the hole. There should be NO open holes in a car.s body, ANYWHERE. You may want to consider replacing the tail light seals, rather than using RTV, to address this problem.. Tail light gaskets cost around $12.00 each. Delray Acura OEM parts would be one source for the required parts. RTV sealant will of course work, but, if you don't accomplish a complete seal on your first attempt, the RTV can prove quite messy, and time consuming to correct.

Arkady

Hey, my 99 TL had the same thing! I'm not sure how it's SUPPOSED to be, but it definitely looks like there were some rubber plugs there before.
what I did was I cleaned up the inside to make sure it was dry, sanded off the light rust and gave it some paint, and then I slapped two circular peices of plastic on either side of the hole. The car trunk was "sandwiched" between the plastic with a whole lot of outdoor caulk, if that makes sense. I then ran a bolt with some washers through that to make sure it stayed put.
The circular scrap plastic pieces were shaped sort of like large, flat bottlecaps.

Haven't had any issues with water since I did that and caulked my brake lights!