Clogged drain hole

[Jacky Ng]

There are 2 drain holes above the rear quarter panels (1 each side).  You can see it when you open the hatch.  Water from the hatch drips down to the channel and it gets drainned out from those 2 holes.  
1 of them in my car is clogged so there was a "river" on one side.  It almost overflow and went into my trunk!

Anyways, how can I clean it out?  I thought about hosting it down with "jet" but then water will get inside the car. Then I thought maybe some CLR will work but I am afraid it will damage the paint.  

Any suggestions?

[Andreas Zervas]

I used a coat hanger to clean mine out.

[Rob Armstrong]

I used weedeater cord..
the green stuff no scratch

[Chao C. Yin]

yeah, just use some flexible rod like a straightened wire cloth hanger and do some poking action.

[Jacky Ng]

Tried to poke it with a thin chopstick.
I can only poke it down a couple inches then can't go any further.  It seems pretty solid down there.  

Any other suggestions?

[Chris Andrews]

Try the "Homemade Roto-rooter" trick.   Get a drill, and a long straight piece of coat-hanger wire.  Put the long straight piece in the chuck.

You must use a variable speed drill.  Also the coat hanger wire must be very straight.

Stick the free end of the coathanger into the clog (do not "load" the wire).  Slowly start the drill.  Increase the speed whilst pushing in and out (  :oops: ).

Be carefull because you can do damage to your car if you are not carefull....  ( I think that is obvious....)

[Leon Hui]

This is the best solution you should do:  take off the inside trunk panels and inspect the drain hoses  (it's just hose clamped on).

You really should do this since the shiity workmanship causes the hose to be kinked causing you to have the problem of "clogged" drain holes.

The kink traps all sorts of debris and eventually it won't flow anymore.

Take it out, get a heat gun, and heat it up and reshape it.

I just did this on my 1997 TSi.