Suddenly my horn sounds very quiet. Is it a coincidence that I just got a new battery? The Sears tech took over 2 hours to do it and even removed my wheel and tire (unnecessarily, it turned out) to do it.
What kind of car is it?
What’s probably happening is that one of the notes on the horn has gone out. It’s probably a coincidence, but on a lot of cars the horn wiring is very near the battery and it is possible that they bumped something in the process.
Your first mistake was going to sears, but you know that already.
Locate the horns and see if a wire got knocked loose. I’ll bet they are located near the battery
On most horns there is an adjustment on the back that moves the fixed contact in and out. The adjustment of this will affect the loadness and tone of the horn. There also are two horn units of different tone as Greasy Jack indicated so one may be disconnected.
Hope that helps.
The horn itself is in a position highly sensitive to corrosion. Often the mount. which is also the ground, will corrode and become a high’resistance connection. This robs (“drops”) voltage and makes for a very timid beep.
The horn itself often gets corroded too. The good news is that there are generic replacements at the parts store for as low as about $10. The bad news is that sometimes the place ment of the horns is in a location difficult to access.
Although it may be illegal, I have a car with a horn that has not worked for the past 5 or more years. I can tell you that no horn works for me. That is because I am accustomed to riding a motorcycle. With a motorcycle, your first reaction to a difficult situation is to get out of the way and not to reach for the horn button but that’s just me. By the way, I live and drive/ride in a big city where traffic is dense.
Thanks for the reply. This is a 2002 PT Cruiser. Apparently it is a pain to change the battery in this car that is why I wondered if it could have happened then.
I use the horn on my bike all the time. When someone is about to run over me, I avoid them and honk at the same time to let them know they were almost scraping me out from their wheel wells.
I think the same mountainbike has given you good advice, as has researcher. I am willing to bet that one horn was accidentally disconnected during the battery replacement.