I recently purchased a new trailer hitch for my 2001 monte ss. I pulled back the carpet inside of the trunk to access the nuts on the back of the taillights to remove them to get to the wiring only to find rust . Upon removing the tail light assembly on both sides...I found a hole about the size of a tennis ball on the passenger side and one about half that size on the drivers side of the car. It appears that where the "seam" is located and they put that sealant goop over it at the factory....the water and salt if you live where they put that wonderful crap on the roads....ate it's way in and started the rotting process. If it weren't for me purchasing the hitch and doing the wiring myself I never would have found this problem as the trunk never got wet ( the water was running down inside of the quarter panel under the carpet) and there wasn't any visual evidence of the problem on the outside. I would bet there are a lot of other Monte's out there ( the older one's like mine) that have the same problem and you don't even know it yet. Just pull back the rug and take a look with a flashlight around the plastic nuts that hold the tail lights in place and see if there is any sign of rust or "bubbling" paint. I hope you don't find anything but I really don't think I'm the only one.

 

Thanks for the heads up.

I'll have to look for that since that part of the body/chassis is the same from 2000-2007.