My daughter recently upgraded from a shared lupo to a polo 9n3 of her own.

Lovely car, but one problem. Both rear lights had standing water in them when she bought it.

I suspected over zealous jet washing by the previous owner and took the lights off, removed the bulb holders, emptied the water and examined the units.

Judging by the corrosion in the bulb holders and apparent limescale left behind, they had been holding water for some time. So, I bit the bullet and bought a brand new set of lights for her as nothing I could do would get the old units back to 'as new' condition.

Now, just a couple of days later and without the car having been washed at all, (but there has been rain) there is water standing in the new nearside rear light cluster.

Clearly the unit is letting in water under circumstances that it really shouldn't.

Any ideas on why this new unit could be letting in water? Should there be some sort of seal or shroud between the light units and the bodywork? At the moment the light units mate directly to the bodywork, but despite being as tight as I can get them, there is still a bit of a gap between the units and the bodywork, and it's possible to see the back of the bulb holders. As this is the first 9n3 in the family, I don't know whether this normal or not.

Many thanks in advance for your advice!

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Problem solved.

It's a lot of words to try & describe something simple, so please persevere!

The lights mate to the bodywork by means of lugs on the lights inserting into square holes in the metal of the bodywork.

On my daughter's car, it seems that the metal around the edges of the holes in the bodywork had been pulled outwards, perhaps by some clumsy previous attempts to remove the lights.

This meant that the lights were further away from the bodywork than they should have been, owing to the edges of the holes being bent outwards. The effect of this was that the foam rubber section at the back of the light unit was not pressing tightly against the bodywork, and so was not making a watertight seal. So, when it rained, the water draining through the area between the tailgate and the bodywork was finding its way into the rear lights and collecting there.

The fix was stupidly simple. Gently hammer the metal around the outside of the holes into which the lugs from the rear lights mate, so it was once more flush. Then, re-attach the lights et voila! They're now really tight to the body of the car, and the foam rubber at the back of the rear light units is now making a watertight seal. So, no more water ingress. :)

Wouldn't it be nice if all fixes were so easy...?

Hope that eventually helps someone!

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I am fully aware that this is close to a 10 year old thread, but.. I’m having the same issue and I am not fully understanding what you mean / meant.. Should I be hammering the bodywork or the little “lugs” from the headlight itself?

The bodywork.

Have a look at this video from around 0:45 in. He doesn’t mention it, but you can see him do it after an initial struggle.

When removing the outward edge of the cluster, it takes a small upward vertical movement of the cluster to defeat the two latches that go into the square holes in the bodywork.

When someone who isn’t aware of the need for this lift tries to remove it, they will try to do it by brute force, and distort the metalwork on the perimeter of these square holes, resulting in the outward bends that the original poster describes, and corrects. I was able to bend it back flat with firm thumb pressure, if memory serves; the metal is pretty thin there.

https://youtu.be/G6AhzgTf1W0?si=M0y2pklZT-zcna6H

Edited 4 February, 20251 yr by Pete1

22 minutes ago, Pete1 said:

Have a look at this video from around 0:45 in. He doesn’t mention it, but you can see him do it after an initial struggle.

When removing the outward edge of the cluster, it takes a small upward vertical movement of the cluster to defeat the two latches that go into the square holes in the bodywork.

When someone who isn’t aware of the need for this lift tries to remove it, they will try to do it by brute force, and distort the metalwork on the perimeter of these square holes, resulting in the outward bends that the original poster describes, and corrects. I was able to bend it back flat with firm thumb pressure, if memory serves; the metal is pretty thin there.

https://youtu.be/G6AhzgTf1W0?si=M0y2pklZT-zcna6H

Hello, I’ll get my tail light out and take a few pictures to share how mine looks, while I try my best to do just what you told me to. If it’s the literal bodywork, I doubt it’s thumb bendable (I’ll still try and see), but if we’re talking about the one on the taillight (as in the little metal clamps) then that’s surely something easy to do and thumb bendable. Thank you for your reply.

Try it; only way to find out. 🙂

Small hammer may be your friend if the bodywork seems sronger than your thumb.

Only thing you might need to do to the light cluster is check that the seal material is present and intact.