My horn is intermittent. When it isn't working, the horn doesn't blow when I press the steering wheel switch or when I lock the car. Once in awhile, it starts working for no reproducible reason. I know it has started working again when it blows when I lock the car. It also blows through the horn switch then as well. Just as suddenly, it stops working until something gets jiggled or whatever.

There's an excellent post with photos on the forum dealing with the membrane horn switch. My gut hunch tells me that when this membrane switch goes bad, that's it. It doesn't "heal" itself only to stop working a day or a week later.

I had the steering wheel off a year or so ago to replace the turn signal stalk and wonder if the spring loaded contact has popped loose (install procedure is to push the part into the housing and load the spring, then twist the part to engage a locking pawl) and it just periodically makes contact again.

FINALLY A QUESTION!!!

Does anyone know if the membrane switch can go intermittent or is it a situation that when it fails, it fails and that's it? I'd rather not start cutting up the membrane switch if it isn't bad.

Any thoughts, or anyone else ever have a similar issue that they fixed and can share how they did it?

Charlie

 

You're lucky. Mine is stuck in the on position. I had to pull the fuse to stop it from driving me crazy. It's so cold here and I haven't been driving it much so I haven't tried to fix it yet. I'm pretty certain my problem is under the steering wheel skin. If I press on the horn with just the right pressure it will stop blowing. Too much or too little pressure and it just blares and blares. When it first stuck I had to drive 30 miles before I could stop in a safe enough place to try and fix it.

 

When I had my car at the dealership for something else, I asked them to check out why my horn wasn't working. They discovered a loose ground connection. Check that out, first before you spend any money.

 

That rings true because it doesn't blow through the steering wheel or the door lock function. Any idea which ground they reset? Maybe a description of where it is?

Charlie

 

Yours sounds like the membrane switch. Search the forum for horn membrane and you should find a GREAT illustrated how to on fixing the problem inexpensively (mostly your time).

Charlie

 

That's the one!!

GREAT write up!

Charlie

 

Just had mine replaced, the horm switch that is. I have an extended warranty that covered it. They replaced the drivers side air bag assembly which is the center section of the steering wheel.

Mine would randomly go off on its own time frame. I could be driving down the street and off it would go. I could barely even touch the horm (steering wheel) surface and get it to go on and off. In the cold I could easilly just tap the horn and it would blow.

As far as being your problem easilly could be. The horn switch can just as easilly open or short, and anything that can be open will often times be intermitant until the connection finally opens to the point there is a gap, then its done.

As far as the dealer 'repairing a ground' who knows. Dealers (any warranty work) will never say 'well we were working on it and it just suddenly started working, we have no idea', they will say something like 'we found and repaired a short' or 'repaired a ground' etc. Believe me, I used to do warranty work (electronics) and you had to say you found something to get paid! An intermitant in electronics can be vary difficult to track down sometimes. They can start working and no matter what you do, heat ,cold ,vabration, you just can't get it to fail.

Found this on another post...
'I believe the horn ground goes through the ground pack at the right forward frame rail on top next to the hood riser'

The horn switch is a common problem, unfortunately. You can try to track down any grounds in the area??? I think there are two under the drivers side dash. or pull out the manual and start tracing the horn circuit. Hopefully you will get lucky and find it! Good luck.

 

I had the same intermittant horn issue - very frustrating !!

Turned out to be the turn signal cancel cam - dealer replaced under warranty - works perfect ever since.

 

I fixed mine using the link above, it worked great. Just unhook you battery for a while before you remove the airbag. I don't believe there is really any way it can blow when you have no power to it. I have had many airbags off and never got black eyes yet

 

Cruisemon, thanks for the info.
8Vette7, thanks for the link. I'll be getting to work on this over the weekend if it's not freezing outside.

 

Thanks for the tip. Since the problem started following replacement of the turn signal lever, that could be related to dinking around with the cancel cam maybe.

Charlie