[AlexDr]

After a long, hard New England winter, I was doing something in my trunk and happened to lift up the cover over the compact spare and I found a couple of inches of water in the spare compartment. Figuring some
melted snow somehow got in there, I sucked up as much as I could with a wet/dry vac. Then I tried to turn the circular latch over the spare tire in order to investigate further and it turns about 1/4 turn and then gets stuck. The tire itself (what I can see of it) is wet and the surrounding carpeting is still quite damp even after a few dry days. I cannot take the cover off because of the stuck latch and can't see further underneath. Does any of this make sense to anybody? The car is a '97 ETC with only 73500 miles on it. Help!

 

[Submariner409]

The 90s - 2000s Eldorado series has chronic trunk leaks, as does the Seville. Several places - the trunk lip weatherstrip, the tail light assembly mounting studs, the trunklid center light assemblies, the flow-through flapper vents down in the fender lower quarter wells, or the body seams themselves.

That twist retainer is threaded - you may have to resort to damage to free it, then it's junkyard tome to find a new spare tire cover - BUT - save your original RPO sticker.

Get a trusted assistant, water hose, flashlight. Crawl into the trunk, close it and have the assistant thoroughly wet the rear end while you look for the leak(s).

Dry it all out, use Rustoleum rust reformer and semi-gloss black anti-rust spray paint.

Google "cadillac forums 2000 seville trunk water leaks" or something close - that will get you started. It's all in Tech Tips - several times.

 

[AlexDr]

Crawl into the trunk and close it? Yikes! Too claustrophobic for that! Thanks anyway.

 

[Ranger]

Then get someone who trusts YOU to get in there.

Trunk leaks where a standard feature on the Seville & Eldo's, even past 2000. My '02 was a leaker.

 

[MoistCabbage]

RPO code H2O :yup:.

 

[jsiddall]

I once found someone referring to this as "Lake Cadillac". Laughed hard at that. Anyway, the previous owner of my first SRX had this issue also. Apparently in that case it was something with the ultraview.

 

[wyched7006]

this may sound crazy.... I had the same problem with a Pontiac Bonnville.....tried everything....turns out to be clogged drain tube coming from
sun roof....the sunroof hase 4 train tubes 1 in each corner ...I used a coat hanger to run down through each hole into the tube cleaned them out ...no more water in trunk......I thought My care had the swimming pool option !!

 

[Submariner409]

Google "cadillac forums (model - year) sunroof drain leaks" or something close. Fixes in every forum plus Tech Tips.