Hatchback water leak

yep

 

I put heavy sealant beads on all of those places, wrapping around the entire hatch, and it didn't do a damned thing....

My 1st Prius it worked, but my 2nd has been stubbornly resistant to watersealing.

 

You are preaching to a choir that has heard this issue for some dozen or more years. Not to say that your post was not helpful. The pictures may help some newbies, but if you get mostly a yawn response, it is because there are dozens of posts about this.

 

I'm having problems now, even after caulking it keeps leaking. I'll do some more investigating, thanks for the pictures!

 

The joke's on everyone else, my Prius is so leaky, the water finds its way back out and I don't actually have pooling issues, lol.

But in all seriousness, from my experience, I had to peel back the black rubber roof seals the run front to back along both sides above the doors and I basically used a flathead screwdriver and scratch awl to chisel and remove all the BS / rotten material, etc. and vacuum/blow it clean.

Then I used black rubberized wet/dry fibered asphalt home roof patch repair carefully with a pack of Popsicle sticks to dry-in and re-seal the problem areas.

Rinse and repeat at the upper corners of the hatch perimeter and also where the hatch struts bolt into the frame, etc.

Not a visually appealing fix the way I did it but mine is purely functional at this point in its life.

I should note:

There also exists a white elastomeric coating that is better for dealing with flexing in the long term, but it has to be completely dry and stay completely dry for 24-48 hours for it to set properly and when I was doing my treatments it was wet and rainy at the time.

Also I guess it kind of depends on the color of your Prius and how [im]patient you are.

 

Hey, thanks for your reply. Mine also felt like that
Fortunately I was able to fix it completely with silicone. There were indeed more cracks further up the roof.
Another leaky area was the bumper! All screw holes on the driver side were leaking like crazy. Like there was nothing in between. The pressure vent also sat loosely. After taking the whole bumper off, it showed that the seals were worn and cracked.

I sealed all the holes and sealed the pressure vent with silicone. After that I put the bracket back on and the screws as well. Making sure silicone goes all the way through, it made a nice snug fit / seal. Also did the other side, although that vent was quite snug.

Underneath the right tail light was a slight crack without OG sealant. Applied silicone too. Again for both sides. The bumper needs to be removed completely.

I have some pictures with detailed markings.
Fix Prius — ImgBB Visit here.
I’ll do regular checks, but when hosing the car down nothing came through. Happy to finally have the trunk back together.
Edit: I also sealed other areas in the trunk gutters which showed cracks. Not very appealing either with all that silicone, but it did the job.

one downside to the leak is that the blue connector from the latch is completely corroded and shot. It was so seized up that I had to use great force to get it open. (Trunk still locks fine, but no light or door ajar). Well, that’s a problem for later .

 

Hereby I decided to add some extra context to my pictures to hopefully help some other people!

Driver side screw holes. IMG-4229 hosted at ImgBB — ImgBB
The four screw holes are heavy leak spots. The old gaskets were worn or cracked. Add silicone here. The pressure vent sat loosely on my occasion, let water through. Take it out and apply enough silicone so it comes through inside the trunk too.

Passenger side screw holes. IMG-4230 hosted at ImgBB — ImgBB
These did not leak, but I sealed them just in case. The vent was snug. There’s a yellow tab, add silicone there too. (The black wire harness is from the parking sensors, previous owner installed it like this. It works, so I left it as is.)

The bumper bracket (DS) (not my car) IMG-4231 hosted at ImgBB — ImgBB
Take it off and add silicone in the holes and on the back. Then put it back and put the screws in. Make sure you applied silicone to the holes beforehand.

Crack under right tail light. IMG-4228 hosted at ImgBB — ImgBB
Here is original sealer missing / cracked. Add some silicone to this area and the DS. Water that goes through here, ends up near the bracket holding the Panasonic brake control box. Or it drips into the 12v compartment.

Please note that the complete bumper needs to be taken off to reach these areas. It’s also good to apply some silicone to the 2 Philips screw gaskets underneath the taillights.
I hope I can help some people that face the same issue! If someone’s interested I can show some pictures from the roof gutter repair.
Good luck, have a great day.