So for various reasons I had to leave my 06 STR out in the driveway during a massive rainstorm. but after putting it into the garage, I opened the trunk, I noticed water pooling by the spare tire.

I’ve read all the posts saying that the tail lights have an issue with leaks and let in the water so I immediately looked at that area.

surprise surprise they weren’t leaking at all, as I tried to find the source of water, I noticed that the water was dribbling down the vertical panel right behind the trunk latch. A little more investigation showed that when I pulled off the weatherstripping gasket that there were areas on the flange that the gasket sits on that was rusty.

More information was that it appears that somebody had put some sort of white Pookie material on the inside channel of the weatherstripping gasket only in the area of the outside rear part of the gasket flange from the tail light to taillight. There was no Pookie stuff going up towards the back windshield. It was only at the extreme back half of the gasket from taillight the tail light , I’m assuming that this problem was noticed by a previous owner and they tried to rectify it by putting something like plumbers putty on the flange because the material was still soft and pliable. Not like silicon or adhesive. Here are some pics by the way

I don’t know how the water got up and over the flange of the gasket but I’m assuming that The trunk latch was positioned too high, which did not allow the trunk lid to fully compress the weatherstripping gasket, that probably allowed water to flow over the gasket, travel down the groove and into the trunk.

I have made adjustments by lowering the trunk latch to allow the chocolate to come down more than it had before and i also adjusted all four plastic posts on the trunk lid. . I verified i had had a complete seal by putting a slight layer of grease across the top of the weatherstripping gasket, closed the trunk and saw witness marks on the trunk lid and on the 4 plastic posts, next time it rains I’ll tell you if it works.
​​​​​​​

That white stuff is the putty

I had already removed much of it before taking pics

You can see remnants of the putty on the spare from me scraping

Thats where the water was dripping