Horn Goes Off After Washing Car--Twice??

tiger123

The strangest thing has happened to me the last two times I have washed my car. My Horn starts blaring at full db's. This happens after I wash and dry my car.

I washed my car yesterday. It's just sitting there and all of a sudden.........it goes off. I tried pushing the unlock......then lock......on the key fob. Nothing. The horn is still going off. I even get into the car, start it and the horn is still going off. I then shut the car off, back on again and horn is blowing hard. I even drove the car out of my driveway and still the horn is going off. I'm like WTF??

Eventually it stopped? I then opened the hood and this awful smell was emanating from the engine bay. It smelled electrical I guess.

Anybody have any clue WTF is going on here?

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14ZTSport

I am not a mechanic in ANY sense of the word, but based on your description I would suspect water is getting into your electrical system as it attaches to your horn or panic alarm. If it was shorting and you drove it, perhaps burnt wires at the point of an electrical short...and if smelling burnt, could cause fire so recommend service at earliest possible convenience...

Shotta

It seems your car gets upset when it's wet.

Most likely a short to wiring in the alarm system or horns have you don't any mods where you have moved wiring around in the engine bay?

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kenchan

i didnt know there were adjustable volume levels for the horns..

are you using a pressure washer? you might be pushing water through a seal.

where is the horn relay again? work on the fuse box in the engine bay recently?

tiger123

No mods to the engine. Only CAI's which were installed over a year ago.

Not using a pressure washer. Just a Fireman's Type Nozzle. It has some pressure, but nothing close to a pressure washer.

Must be a short somewhere. I guess I need to locate it before something worse happens.

I will check under the hood later today and give full inspection. If I can't find anything, I will take it to the stealership as my car has Certified warranty until 100k's. I also have the extended Gold Plus which covers just about bumper-to-bumper up until 120ks.

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kenchan

you mentioned this happens AFTER washing your car.

be funny if you're just sitting on your fob after you're done washing the car with your beer in hand.

kenchan

..or your fob's wet.

tiger123

You are right, that would be funny.

I leave the Fob in the house when I wash my car. It's not on me.

It's like it has a mind of its own. One minute everything will be great, then all of a sudden..............it goes off. I run into the house grab the Fob and start pushing buttons. Nothing happens like I explained.

Fvcking weird if you ask me.........

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tiger123

Well, my horn is now dead. It would appear it burnt itself out.

Anyone else had their horn die out? Did you get OEM or aftermarket horn replacement. If aftermarket, would appreciate details.

Thanks.

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falconfixer

Big Bang Train Air Horns Nathan Train Horn Air Horn

tiger123

Excellent.......Just what I was looking for.....I placed my order today. Matter of fact, I bought two, just in case it happens again.......

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brandonb370

Your car is definitely a transformer.

On a real note, same thing happened to me in my 1990 Cadillac Allante. Every time I took a left turn it would honk. Ended up being loose wires

falconfixer

Looks like someones sense of humor burned up with their horn.

Here's a thought. Download the wiring diagram from the FSM and wring out the wires with a multimeter and fix the short since something burned up. Once you fix that don't overthink it, go to courtesyparts.com and install a new horn. You want aftermarket, go to Autozone.

tiger123

I didn't take it literally. I was actually trying to be funny as well.....guess it didn't come across very well.

Tks for the diagram tip. I will try this out and see what happens.

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falconfixer

The retard icon threw me off so I got on the defensive.

Looking at your mods it doesn't looks like you messed with the wiring in there so that makes it tough to isolate a possible short. The concern is that you smelled burnt electrical so something is shorting/burning...we got that. Now to find the problem.

I don't have the wiring diagram in front of me but a horn can't be that complicated. Wringing it out may be a bitch so a visual might be a better start. I would get in there and inch by inch as much as you can trace the wires and see it the shielding is cut or kinked or just fubared. OHM it out once that is done to see if it's getting a signal when it should and isn't when it shouldn't.

A buddy would definitely help if for anything to have a second pair of eyes since I imagine your aggravated at this point. Also, try and recreate the environment. Wash it like you normally do and pop the hood. It should be dry as a bine in there and if water is getting in there that may shed some light.

I don't want to write a novel but do the best you can to figure out why it shorted just from washing it. In the end, courtesy, ebay, amazon might have cheap horns to get in there to figure out what is going on and then you can install the train horn