[PaulS]

Looking for some ideas/thoughts/guidance.

My Leaf (64 reg) has decided to randomly sound its horn when parked up; sometimes a single time, other times a few in a row. At first, due to the sometimes repeating nature of the horn, I took this to be the alarm. However, in trying to test the issue I have heard the actual alarm by getting my wife to lock me in the car and activating the alarm. Seeing as this is a siren noise I was quite surprised.

I initially thought this was an issue with the 12v battery so duly replaced but the behaviour has continued. There doesn't seem to be any particular circumstances/timings as to when the horn will sound and I can't discern any recurring pattern to the horn sounding but I would say it is not the same each time. Saying this, I generally try silencing it with the fob as soon as I hear it.

For the moment I have removed both horn relays and tested and confirmed that the horn no longer sounds. I've done this so my neighbours don't get woken up at stupid o'clock by my delinquent Leaf and will replace them before I head off on my journeys and remove at the other end! At least until I can work out the issue or get it looked at. I have checked all other fuses that I can access and all seem fine although I didn't expect there to be any to be blown.

Anybody out there had similar or know what the issue may be and whether there is something I can investigate myself?

 

[PaulS]

Nissan Leaf UK Facebook group has pointed me in the direction of a potential post here relating to expansion of the horn contact switch ring behind the steering wheel airbag. I'm not having much luck locating the post, can anyone point me in the right direction?

 

[srichards]

Tell them to give you the URL of the post!

Search isn't brilliant. If you search on several key words it doesn't even have the brain to give you posts with all those keywords in it, even though that's exactly what you are searching for.

 

[i-s]

Not much help I'm afraid, but I wonder if this issue was the same root cause as it being impossible to engage cruise control on our old Leaf without sounding the horn? On that part of the wheel it took so little pressure to sound the horn that it wasn't possible to press the cruise control button using less pressure.

 

[srichards]

Other cause might be sticky horn button and it's got gunged up. Assuming it's out of warranty it's probably time to find a HEVRA approved garage to take a look unless a local Nissan Dealer has seen it before and can fix it reasonably.

 

[Aragorn]

On older cars, replacing the horn/airbag slip ring was easy. On newer vehicles, the slip ring also contains an angle sensor for the stability control system, and this sensor usually requires coding to the car.

Personally, I would start by removing the airbag and inspecting the contacts for the horn.

 

[PaulS]

So, as mentioned in my first post I had removed BOTH the relays for the Horn from the fuse boxes. Yesterday I replaced the horn relay alone and have not replaced the horn alarm at the moment. I don't actually know when this would be activated as the internal activation set off the siren alarm. So far I have had no random horn sounds that I am aware of so I think the Horn Alarm side of things is the right area to focus on.

Due to the nature of the horn sounding (distinct beep, beep, beep pattern) I am now drifting away from the expansion theory. I have ordered a multimeter so I can monitor the battery to rule this out also.