I am getting a lot of water inside the rear hatch mounted lens assembly on my 01 Legacy wagon  I am getting a lot of water inside the rear lens assembly on my 01 Legacy wagon.

Lens meaning the large red plastic component with SUBARU on it.

How much water? when I open the hatch, water trickles out of the access flaps for the rear lights,  it's coming from around the bulbholders for the running/brake lights on the hatch. It's been raining lightly this morning, nothing serious, I can't imagine what it will be like when it really rains.

There was a small crack in the lens assembly just about in the middle of the SUBARU lettering and I caulked that as a test and it did nothing to slow it down.

I cannot find anywhere that looks like it's a spot for a leak, has anyone seen this and know where the water is coming from?

Thanks!

I had a similar problem years back on an old VW, in that the front marker light lens would fill up with rain water. It would take a long time to fill with water, and I could not see where water was entering the lens. So, I took and drilled a small hole in the bottom of the lens to let the water drain out. That worked well. Eventually, the drain hole would fill with crud and plug up. I would either re-drill the hole, or clean out the crud with a sharp pointed tooth pick.

It leaks in around the seal between the light and the hatch. You have to remove the whole light assembly and reseal it to the hatch. It's kind of a pain.

My rear light leaked where the colored plastic lensd part met the black plastic backshell, silicone applied at the periphery did the trick.

 

The cracks were not easy to see.

My 2000 & 2001 obw both had this problem .. removing the entire light assembly and sealing  with form a gasket is how i got mine to stop. Be glad you don't have a limited edition with a sunroof , mine  leaked horribly ... turned out to be the body seams ... had to remove the headliner to find & fix it ! 

Wow, usually sunroof leaks are the drains being clogged. My 98 LGT had a sunroof, I ended up having to replace the entire sunroof assembly, what a PITA!

 

Yea, my outback had the same trunk leaky issue, I just ignored it...