Hey all. Here is my current (hopefully) small issue...pushing on the upper half of the steering wheel pad produces nothing, whilst doing so on the lower half reliably sounds the horns.

I have been searching the forum for info, and understand I must be mindful of the airbag before looking deeper into the steering wheel pad...i.e. disconnect power at the battery. A couple of fasteners on the back side of the wheel must be removed. But beyond that, I'm in the dark as to what the electrical contacts might be like...assuming that's the problem.

Seems likely to me, if a portion of the push pad works and another portion does not. But I may be mistaken.

Any info or hints as to possible fixes would be most welcomed.

 

Nothing?

 

Hi Burn,

Let's take the air bag off and see what's happening. I've done it dozens of times, you'll be ok.

1. Empty trunk for battery access.
2. Tilt steering wheel down.
3. Turn the wheel so that access to bolt #1 is at 12oclock position (or there abouts). You will have to reposition the steering wheel for each bolt if you don't want to take the cowl cover top & bottom off.
4. Figure out what size ratchet fits the bolt. (Memory says its torqx bolt?)
5. Turn OFF Tilt Telescope Auto switch (this way your not chasing your tail with every ignition cycle.
6. Loosen bolts holding airbag / horn switch.


7. Now bolts are finger tight. Disconnect battery.
8. Wait 3 minutes (that's overkill but wth)
9. Remove bolts. Slowly tilt pad back so you can see the wire routing for reassembly. Its not self evident and a few wires are long.
Disconnect the wire harnesses

Look, this is a heads up from memory. I remember the scary "uh oh WTF damage did I just do to this wire harness?"

One of the connectors takes a good bit of pulling or some kind of pressure to release. It's one where you put that extra force in to break the connection, but when it unlatched you've got all that momentum - you likely can't react fast enough to stop it before the
Harness reaches its travel limit. Ìt gives you a startle and you start to wonder how much damage you just did, followed closely by "oh crap how am I going to get a harness replacement?" ;-)

Friend i never did any permanent damage, but its a sucky feeling. I figure if you know about it you may dodge it.

I can't picture the horn switch, but its a pressure switch, I'm sure you'll see how it works when you're in there. Remember the horn is ignition switched.

Yes you can turn ignition on if the air bag is disconnected and across the room.

I admit I tend to be a little hyper safe. When airbag is disconnected, point it where it won't explode into someone or something should a freak accident occur and it goes off.

I hope this helps. Ask if you need more mate.

John

 

This is a great help, thank you very much indeed. I appreciate the time you've taken to give such a thorough reply. I will get into it within a couple of days, I hope. If something comes up I'll surely ask for help...and will report back if successful.

 

Please do! Mines doing the same thing, however since I only really use my horn to say hello to people I haven't been that worried about it lol. But I should fix it

 

Apologies, life has thrown complications into my plans to delve into the horn issue...my opportunities to do the work in the near future have diminished. But I will do so as soon as I can, and will report back. Thanks again for the help.

 

I am in a conundrum . When I initially posted my horn pad problem, it was cold and wet weather here in NW Oregon. Since then, weather has been frequently more moderate, even warm and dry...and the horn problem has gone away.

Now I don't know if there is a correlation, obviously. But for now, I'm going to let things ride as they are.

But I am going to operate the horn as frequently as is socially acceptable, just to keep those upper contacts exercised .

Thanks again for the advice, John. It would not surprise me if in fact I still will end up getting in there to clean those contacts up. If so, I'll post an update.