My 02 Fabia 1.4 16v has a strange horn problem. With the ignition off, it doesn't work at all; with the ignition on it works, but a bit half-heartedly, and sometimes only when I press the lower half of the steering wheel hub; with the engine running it works as designed. The battery is showing 12.4v at rest across the terminals.

 

I can see there might be a voltage loss somewhere in the system, perhaps a tired battery, which would account for it working better when the engine is running; but why would it be working (sort of) when the ignition is on but the engine not running?

 

The local dealers had the steering wheel off and cleaned the contacts, which improved matters for around 24hrs, but it's back to the situation as above.

Why do you need/want it to do anything at all when the engine isn't running? 

20 minutes ago, Chris Beeson said:

With the ignition off, it doesn't work at all

 

Neither does mine. It's not meant to.

Thanks to Wino and TMB! I can't believe I've had this Fabia for 19 years, and only just noticed this. I put it down to having owned a whole host of cars in the past that all had the horn circuit direct off the battery, and happily worked on all of them. It's this computer stuff that foxes me.

38 minutes ago, Chris Beeson said:

Thanks to Wino and TMB! I can't believe I've had this Fabia for 19 years, and only just noticed this. I put it down to having owned a whole host of cars in the past that all had the horn circuit direct off the battery, and happily worked on all of them. It's this computer stuff that foxes me.

 

Interestingly, what does work with the ignition off is the brake lights. This was even the case on the old rear-engined Skodas.

4 hours ago, TMB said:

 

Interestingly, what does work with the ignition off is the brake lights. This was even the case on the old rear-engined Skodas.

The brake lights dont work with the ignition off in the mk2 if mines anything to go off of.

Horns arent meant to work with the ignition off so far as I can tell either.

The horns on these are weak anyway. I have a set of twin cheapo aliexpress horns in my Mk1 cause the original horns were broken when I crashed.

Lucky I'm stood next to the car so I recorded the horn sound of the cheap Aliexpress job in case you need to change them:

https://youtube.com/shorts/NdWpogGoBJE

Do you have a link for the horns or what search term to use?

I bought them a few years ago and only got to fitting them a few months ago so I've don't know the exact listing. I do know that I got them from either aliexpress, banggood or wish and they came packaged properly as a set. They only came out to 10 euro or so i'm pretty sure. 
https://a.aliexpress.com/_mOELa6b

That link goes to ones that look very similar in design and branding to the ones I bought. I can't remember what hz the horns were, but it does say on them what they are. They were dead easy to install, just cut the connector off for the stock ones and get some spade connectors for the end of the wires. Easy as.

Excellent thanks, something I have been meaning to do for a long time!

It is a bumper off job, but the horns themselves are easy to do, just make sure you have the spade connectors and what not on hand rather than needing to go in the middle of the job and get them. Knowing what they sound like I was half tempted to put them in my Monte Carlo and just put that horn in my mk1 but the front was off of my mk1 at that point so it was easiest to just do it then and there.

I'm not sure that I have the wiring on the other side from the single wet fart horn, I didn't find it during the front off repairs, wont be a problem for me if they are together.

56 minutes ago, J.R. said:

I'm not sure that I have the wiring on the other side from the single wet fart horn, I didn't find it during the front off repairs, wont be a problem for me if they are together.

Mine were together on my mk1. Passengers side near roughly where the power steering is. VW must use the same horn in everything, I'm pretty sure I heard a leon with the same horn as ours and theres no way anyone would willingly put that horn into something.

4 hours ago, DieselMonte said:

The brake lights dont work with the ignition off in the mk2 if mines anything to go off of.

 

They must have changed it on the MK2 then.

Edited 30 March, 20215 yr by TMB

9 hours ago, TMB said:

 

They must have changed it on the MK2 then.

It would seem so.

3 hours ago, DieselMonte said:

It would seem so.

Makes sense. Otherwise a failed or sticky brake light switch would discharge the battery, just like happened to me in my Mk4 Golf. I always check brake lights after turning the car off ever since.