About 20 years ago, I was out with a bunch of friends being idiots and a buddy decided to lay on the horn of his 1994 Nissan Pathfinder to see how long it would take for it to stop honking. At around 10 minutes, the tone of the horn started to sink a few notes in the scale, and by about 18 minutes, the thing sounded like it chainsmoked a few cartons of cigarettes back to back. I think it made it to 22 minutes before the horn completely gave out.
So, 22 minutes if you drive a 1994 Nissan Pathfinder, give or take.
Using the same 1994 Pathfinder, we also realized that one can drag a 12ft Boston Whaler fiberglass hull boat without a trailer on pavement in a parking lot with a bunch of dudes on it having a sword fight with wiffle ball bats for approximately one hour before there's a hull breach. But that's another story altogether.
Feedyurhed said:
Years ago, during a torrential storm/rain there was a big clap of thunder and the horn in my Jeep Cherokee XJ went off. Don't know if it was actually struck by lightning or the sound set off the horn. It was at night right around midnight and as I said it was a monsoon outside. I waited and waited for it to end................never did. 15 or 20 minutes went by with no abatement. That little bastard never let up. I finally ran out there, slid under the vehicle (I knew where the horn was) and clipped one of the wires leading to the horn and blessed quiet ensued. Can't explain it...........must have been a Jeep thing.
Had the same thing with my XJ. I woke up to a horn blaring and wondered what my idiot neighbor was up to. After a few minutes I got up and ran outside ready to tell whoever it was how happy they were making me. When I realized it was my jeep I was fair and scolded myself. I grabbed tools and disconnected the battery. I later realized that yanking the horn fuse would have been quicker. It never happened again for the few years that I owned it. I sold it to a friend and he's never had it happen either.
JBinMD
Reader
2/23/24 4:08 a.m.
Mr_Asa said:
Tom1200 said:
Yuo guys need to hook one up to a battery and see how long it takes to drain it..........
There are easier ways.
First, assume a spherical cow.
Find resistance of the horn, find resistance of wiring leading from battery to horn, do math, figure how many amp-hours the battery does. Done.
Is that, like, a special yoga pose that will help me figure out the answer?
In reply to David S. Wallens :
so around 2-3 hours?
Tony Sestito said:
About 20 years ago, I was out with a bunch of friends being idiots and a buddy decided to lay on the horn of his 1994 Nissan Pathfinder to see how long it would take for it to stop honking. At around 10 minutes, the tone of the horn started to sink a few notes in the scale, and by about 18 minutes, the thing sounded like it chainsmoked a few cartons of cigarettes back to back. I think it made it to 22 minutes before the horn completely gave out.
So, 22 minutes if you drive a 1994 Nissan Pathfinder, give or take.
Using the same 1994 Pathfinder, we also realized that one can drag a 12ft Boston Whaler fiberglass hull boat without a trailer on pavement in a parking lot with a bunch of dudes on it having a sword fight with wiffle ball bats for approximately one hour before there's a hull breach. But that's another story altogether.
Interesting that you say "lay on the horn" and you live in the Northeast. My mother always said that and my father ridiculed her incessantly over it. Like it was the stupidest phrase he'd ever heard. Which lead me to believe it was a Southern thing. Hmmm.
Years ago, the horn started honking on some beat up old truck parked out on the street at 5am. I listened to it for about 15 minutes, and finally got up, put on my clothes and went outside. I got to the truck at the same time as one of my neighbors. He said, "This isn't your truck, is it?" I said no, and he proceeded to open the hood, reach in, and start ripping wires out with his bare hands until the honking stopped.
Long enough for cops to show up and wait outside your house for you to come disconnect it when you left the roof down on your miata and it rained.
I have no idea how long it lasted, I'd been up since 5am with my window open and never heard it, but Lincoln PD was there ready to jump my E36 M3 at 9 when I walked outside.
Longer than leaving your headlights on is my best guess, because I didn't need a jump after the horn incident.
In reply to A 401 CJ :
You totally lay on the horn. (New Yorker here.)
John Welsh said:
I'll bet it's a F150.
In the past they had a known problem at the horn contact behind the airbag
Wasn't just 150's. I had a 350 that did it. Got good at yanking the fuse. Ended up fixing it myself with tiny strips of electrical tape, cut with an Xacto knife. The "button" is like two sheets of copper held apart by various strips of silicon or some such. The silicon broke down, and when you pressed the horn, sometimes the copper sheets just didn't separate.
So coincidentally I came across an arstechnica article today that references https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rim_Blow
Rim Blow was a type of steering wheel with no suspended horn ring or horn pad on the spokes that was featured on some automobiles built in the U.S. from 1969 to 1974...Technical issues, such as hardening (difficult to activate) and shrinking (causing the horn to sound without activation) of the rubber...
Which I thought could be yet another way this happened on those specific cars
David, it's been 10 days, how did this end? Someone crawl under the car and snip the horn wire?
