Yeah.. I have this stupid leak too.... I should have looked closer at the interior before I bought it, as there are some fairly obvious signs. For one, there are some rust stains on the floor carpeting.... Secondly, some of the bolts that hold the front bucket seats in, are RUSTED ... :| .... you would think that by 1998 Chrysler could keep water out of a car.... sigh. Thirdly... Awful mold smell from trunk, and you can smell it in the back seats too... I had to spray about 3 full cans of Lysol to kill it.
Anyway, right away I suspected the tail lights... and sure enough.... if you put a bunch of water on the trunk area, and open up the trunk... you can watch it run down into the tail lights. This also happened on my previous car. 1989 Plymouth Sundance... ahem... which is basically the car the neon replaced.... So probably since the first sundance/shadows came out, up until todays current neons... is like 15+ years of leaky trunks... pretty ridiculous. I have to wonder if this is a marketing tactic... ie: Rust the car from the inside out, so the consumer has to buy a new car sooner than expected. :|
-lowlevel