reasons for wussy car horns?

Question on car horns.

I’ve owned several small Japanese cars (I like in the U.S.) that have fairly powerful engines, but really pathetic horns. I’m talking about small “meep meeps” that carry maybe a few feet and are very low in volume and/or fear factor.

I’m currently driving a larger, non Japanese car that has, in start contrast, a super loud horn that cuts through any sound around it.

Now I don’t use my horn all the time – I don’t live in NYC – but I have relied on it to get me out of the occasional accident. Say someone decides to change lanes without checking their blind spot, but I’m already in that space.

The last collision I was involved in was just that case – a driver changing lanes who hit my car. I saw it coming and was leaning on my small Japanese car horn for all it was worth, but she just didn’t hear it, so… CRASH.

Now that I have a louder horn, I’ve managed to avoid several similar collisions. I see someone drifting into my space without checking their blind spot, I lay on the horn and they JUMP back into their lane.

Now, my current car, while larger than many Japanese sports cars, is far from huge. Still has two doors, a small hatchback… so I assume car size isn’t a limiting factor in horn volume.

Now for the twofold question.

  1. Why are Japanese car horns so damn quiet? And let’s face it, quiet horns are pretty damned ineffectual and unsafe, so why are these even legal in the U.S.? Are there no volume standards for car horns?

  2. Assuming I get another car with a quiet horn, is there any way to make them louder that won’t cost a fortune? Can I force/negotiate with a dealership to increase the volume before I buy a car, or is that just not done?

Car junkies, have some suggestions I can use?

I feel your pain. My last car was an '87 Chevy Nova, which were actually made by Subaru or Suzuki or one of those guys and then rebadged as Chevrolets. It suffered from a severe case of Wimpy Horn Syndrome. My dream was to sneak into a railroad yard, steal one of those big trombone horns off a locomotive, and strap it to the roof of my Nova :smiley:

Seriously tho, you can probably get an aftermarket horn that’ll cut the mustard, and have a mechanic install it.

I was at autozone the other day and they have aftermarket horns which you can install onto your car. As for how loud they are, I have no clue.

I had that problem on my truck. I drive a Dodge 3500 RAM with the Cummins Diesel(Largest truck Dodge builds in the US). Now 1 the diesel is loud, and 2 Dodge uses the same horns on all their cars, and it seems to be appropriate for a Geo. I can’t hear the stock horn over the engine.

I was driving down the freeway here one day, and some idiot talking on a cell phone cut right in front of me going about 10MPH slower than I was. I slam the horn, and the breaks. She never even looked up.

Later that day I went and got Hadley air horns Mounted them under the truck so they are not visable. A few weeks after the installation I was going down the street in the center lane. One car on either side of me, and the person in the outside lane decides he needs my lane. I hit the horns, and not only did he stop changing lanes, but the guy on the other side swerved away from me.

Train horns arn’t too hard to find. here is a link to Grover who make truck, train, and marine horns.

Also a story that went around another message board I used to visit (may be UL) said a guy with a Dodge Cummins, got a Fog Horn from a “large ocean going vessel” Mounted it in the bed and used a large air tank to power it. Story said he blew out the back window of his truck when he set it off the first time.

I have a friend that drives a Mercury Couger which I have borrowed to run errands once in a while. It has a meep meep horn. I always said that if I owned it, changing out the horn is one of the first things I’d do. I also fora year or so drove a 95 Ford Bronco (with a plow). I had been telling myself for quite a while that I was going to put air horns on it, but didn’t for two reasons. A)Couldn’t find a good hidden place to mount it/them B) I was worried I would scare people to the point of them getting in accidents of their own. (ie them getting startled and swerving the worng way and hitting another car).

Drive a tank. Problem solved.

So I guess this means there is zero government regulation as far as horn volume is concerned? We focus on smog, seatbelts, airbags, a 3rd rear brake light – but make the horn as quiet as the Japanese would like it to be?

There are noise ordinances you know.

Hmm, do tanks even HAVE horns?

I have an 86 Chevy Caprice, and it has a very loud horn.

I have a 2000 Rav4, and the horn it came with is decent enough (and I have to use it quite often around here).
At the beginnings of the 90s, I purchased a Mercury Tracer, and the horn was very poor (very quiet). I went to Autobarn (any auto-parts store will do), got a ‘low-tone’ replacement horn (there was also a ‘high-tone’ one, but I had only one horn mount and so grabbed the low tone), installed it (very simple - even the wire connections were the same, and the mounting bracket went on quickly), and had a very decent horn (which again, I used quite often - you just have to…).

Under a year after I bought my '97 Dodge Avenger (Mitsu divetrian and things, Dodge badge) I had replaced the meepmeep with an airhorn. Five years later, I replaced it with another, deeper & louder horn.

It’s much nicer to lightly tap your horn and get the attention of everyone in the lanes around you than it was to lay on the meepmeep until my hands got tired and I was forced to just stare angrily.

I’m beginning to get some evil ideas about a very loud marine horn mounted to my car…

It should be fairly easy and inexpensive to purchase and install a louder horn from an auto parts store. If you go with a really loud horn that draws a lot more power than the stock horn you may need to install a relay also. A relay would let the horn be powered from the battery but be activated in the normal way. Even if you got a horn large enough to require a relay the install should be fairly easy.

As WMN pointed out, if there were regulations, you would be likelier to have it be to keep private, noncommercial auto horns from being " too loud", due to noise pollution concerns. In any case, it’s not that “we” make the horn as quiet as the Japanese like it. It’s that it’s the Japanese making the horn in the first place.

My Toyota has a good, adequately loud horn that has been perfectly adequate to get the attention of other drivers and people in front of whose houses I pull – but it does have a high-pitched " beep" timbre, as opposed to sounding like a saxophone connected to an air compressor. Got no prob with that! I am NOT driving a train, semi-rig, or ferryboat, I do not need a foghorn.

It may be after all an American thing – where the guy in the car next to you is blasting out the latest dance mix over a 700W sound system while trying to dial on his cell phone, you may want to startle him back into reality. But if in most of the world they use the “wussy” beep-beep horn, it must be it IS good enough to do its job for them.

I have a 93 Chevy Beretta and to say the least the horn is worthless. I went down to Pep Boys one day and bought an aftermarket horn. It uses an air compressor hooked to three air horns and a relay which I ran inside and mounted on my dash. To say the least people hear about it now when they piss me off. I knocked a kid off his bike once with it :slight_smile:

I think it has less to do with wussy horns or blasting stereos, and the problem is more that modern cars, at least those in the U.S., are almost totally sound-proofed. You can’t hardly hear anything that’s happening outside the car. Add to that people simply not paying attention, which seems to be an epidemic, and it only seems like the horn is too quiet.
That being said, I really need to install a couple of little air horns on my motorcycle, right in front of the engine, one pointing left and one right. The stock horn is loud enough, but it’s tucked down under the tank on the left side, so might as well not be there if I need to warn someone on the right.

A friend of mine installed the quartet of horns out of an old Cadillac on his Harley. Quite effective, if you have space behind a fairing or wherever to tuck them all in.

When i was young and interested in such things (about 30 years ago!) i used to have a klaxon horn on my car. This was a motor-driven horn that turned a toothed wheel against a metal diaphragm and made a satisfying “Wroooooarrgh” sound that turned heads wherever i sounded it! Boy’s toys…

How about a Chrylser Hemi powered air horn? Bolt one of these suckers to the roof of your Subaru and no one will get in your way.

I didn’t spend much time on the road in Japan, but in Taiwan, people use their horns a lot. It’s not out of anger, they just use them differently. Often people will sound them if they suspect someone else on the road doesn’t realize they are there – not just in lane changes, but all the time. People in Taiwan use horns like people in the US use turn signals.

Given that, if they all had Caddy horns, no one would ever be able to sleep or concentrate at work.

It could be that Japanese manufacturers take this into account and make kinder and gentler horns instead of the “MOVE YOU FUCKHEAD!!!” kind of air trumpet.