Last night at about 3 a.m. one of my neighbor’s car’s horn started honking by itself. Not intermittently like from a car alarm, but full blast as if someone were leaning on it. It continued for a minute or two then stopped…I am not sure if it stopped by itself or if someone went out and stopped it.
I remember this happening at an apartment building I once lived in, although then the same car went off 3 or 4 times in the same week. Again, not a car alarm, but a continuos blast as if someone were leaning on the horn. The neighbors were not pleased, I can assure you.
It was damn cold around here last night, probably hit a low of about 10F. I was wondering if it had something to do with moisture condensing, and closing a circuit causing the horn to honk. Anyone know?
Question 2 is: If this by some ungodly chance should happen to one of my cars, waking the entire neighborhood at 3 a.m. on a bitter cold winter’s night, what is the easiest/quickest/safest way to make it stop?
Question 2.) If you can get to the horn, pull off the wire. There’s a spade terminal on the only wire on the horn. That will stop the noise, but your horn relay is still stuck. That will wait until morning.
Possibilities:
[ul]
[li]Condensation creating a closed circuit.[/li][li]Cold causing parts to shrink and make contact[/li][li]Rodents climbing into the vehicle for warmth and chewing on wires.[/li][/ul]
It happened in front of my building a few weeks ago, and the neighbor who owns car wasn’t home, for some reason. So it continued for an hour and a half, starting at 7 a.m., which for me is the middle of the night (I’m a night owl). I laid there, thinking about breaking the window and shutting it off, but resisted.
Eventually she came home (someone called the cops, who tracked her down somehow), and I think all she did to stop it was push the horn button a couple of times. So probably the cold had shrunk some part of the switch mechanism and made contact.
Same thing happen to me several years ago. My wife and I awaken to a horn blowing about 4 AM… I laid in bed for a long time… cussing why the person doesn’t stop their horn from blowing! Finally I told my wife I’m going to find out what’s going on. When I got to the front of the house I realized it was mine! :eek: :smack:
I raised the hood and plugged the wire connector apart coming from the steering column. The next day after testing I found this wire was shorted to ground. I suppose the cold night air cause some movement in the wire exposing a bare spot.
The more I think about it, #1 is rather unlikely. As cold as it is lately, there is almost no moisture in the air, so I can’t picture condensation.
As for #3…well, we have red and grey squirrels in the neighborhood, but they aren’t nocturnal. I don’t think we have rats in the area, at least not in significant numbers. Maybe flying squirrels…they are nocturnal. I’ll ask the neighbor if he found any cooked rodent carcasses on his driveway. The car is driven every day BTW…it isn’t some old heap sitting around.
I’m leaning towards #2 though. I wonder if there are certain makes of car that are more prone to this? The car in question is a Mercury Sable or somesuch.