FD Rear Hatch Drains - clear them properly!

[DrDan]

Chaps & Ladies,
 
Not a major How-To... more of a reminder. Don\'t forget to clear the draining points by the rear-lights of the rear-hatch!
 
I noticed that I have occasionally been getting small amounts of water in the boot of the car if it had been caught outside in particularly heavy rain. This had also been pooling under the rear seats/bins.
 
It turns out the drains at the rear of the hatch - by the rear lights - were partially blocked by silty gunk under the plastic cover. This wasn\'t visible from the outside, and was allowing water to drain slowly, so by the time the rain had stopped and the outside of the hatch was dry enough to open without pouring water into the boot, there was no sign of water pooling. :2Rolleyes
 

 
The task is simple, just remove the three philips head screws circled in the picture above (use the handy screwdriver that Mazda supplied in the car toolkit). Gently lift and slide the plastic cover out, and clean the area out - try not to let the gunk get down behind the lights, as then you\'re just moving the problem somewhere else!
 
It may not be a big-deal, but I know that it\'s a proper PITA trying to trace intermittent water leaks in the rear hatch area!
 
And that is all for this public service announcement
 
DrDan.

[Wombat-007]

Thanks for the reminder, simple, but often overlooked :Thumbs-up

[DrDan]

Additional handy reminder (thanks SiH), "Refit all screws!".
 
If you don\'t then water leaks through the holes into the boot
 
DrDan.

[leefitz]

Nice one. Where\'s these points a the front ofthe car? Iv a bits water getting into my passengers foot well :S

[Nik da Greek]

Lee, are you sure it\'s not your heater matrix starting to leak? Classic sign is wet passenger carpet. Another (rarer) culprit is water running down the wiring loom and through the grommet in the firewall that holds the wires for the ECU etc

[leefitz]

Oooo, don\'t like the sound of the heater matrix leaking :S I new about the loom part though. Will have to look when the car comes back out in spring. I only found the water the day I took the car off the road so I dryed her inside and out to get rid of the water so for now I\'m happy but will have to look into it soon.  Cheers for that

[rx-dave]

You\'ll often find a strange \'curry like\' smell with a leaky matrix or so i\'ve always found with this problem in the past.