My wife drives a 2005 PT Cruiser. We live in north Florida, which has been experiencing torrential rain recently. Well, the inevitable occurred: She drove down a street that was more flooded than she thought it was & stalled out. (“A wave crested over my car hood,” she reported.) She already took it to our mechanic, who swapped out the air filter, swabbed out a bunch of water & essentially declared her enormously lucky for not being in worse shape.
Long story longer: Her horn now sounds funny. Whereas it used to be a cute little “honk”–which admittedly could be heard indoors from the driveway–it now sounds like a large man blowing his nose. It sounds to me as if water might be trapped somewhere “inside”, muffling the horn noise. Is this even feasible, and is there anything we can do about this?
Yes, it’s entirely feasible, and in this case likely, that water is in the horn. Remove the horn and pour the water out. Maybe when it dries it will sound normal again. Otherwise replace the horn.
Your mechanic is correct. She was enormously lucky.
If pouring out water doesn’t help, that would mean that the diaphragm or coil/core was damaged by the water. You can buy a new generic replacement horn for about $20 at any parts store.
I know the horn itself is inside the passenger-side front fender…would the coil/core be in the same location? And how would be the best way to get at that? I have some old jackstands I could probably use…