Leaky Tail Light

Ever had one of these on your RX-8?

Here is the culprit.

Any of the millions of little things that can fit down this little hole. The rain gutter has to drain somewhere. It just so happens to be behind your tail light and around the seal that is suppose to keep your lights dry.

Here is the affected problem area. Sorry for the fuzzy pic.

Here's the back of the tail light. You can see all of the tree muck and fungus that has been accumulating there over the years.

Once you have your light off, you'll see where the water is suppose to drain. It should run in between the seal and the plastic backing of the light itself! A very small little opening that gets clogged easily.

Once you clean up the tail light area of your car ...

...and the seal itself. You should once again get a free flow of water around, and not IN, your tail light. I cleaned mine a month or so ago and we've had some pretty stout rain storms lately with no leakage into the light.

If you've never ventured into your trunk and pulled apart the trunk liner. Here are a few tips. You'll have about six of these little buggers to remove from the liner plastic and also the liner fabric.

Here's a close-up.

This shows the plastic liner once it's unattached and pulled forward slightly.

Pull away the fabric liner to access the tail light.

There are two gold nuts to remove.

And you have to disconnect the electrical wires to each light bulb, three total.

On the passenger side light you have to loosen the trunk lock mechanism.

I think so long as your rubber gasket isn't damaged or completely dry rotted you should be okay without replacing it. Of course to be sure it's probably a good idea to buy the new upgraded gaskets from Mazda. In my case it wasn't the gaskets failure but the trash build-up that caused the leak.

As a side note: I did drill a small hole into the bottom of the light for drainage.