Horn tried to start a fire

Hi all

Today whilst driving my TD5 i started smelling electrical smoke, then after a few moments the horn started blaring and loads of smoke was coming from the horn/front left of the bonnet.

Fortunately I managed to disconnect the battery quickly before the car went up in flames. I then snipped the car horn and drove it home (I was a mile away)

Before I removed the horn to drive home, I
- removed every single accessory cable from the battery (to remove the chances my accessory lights, heated seats etc were causing a short, due to my wiring!)
- removed the horn and the rear heated screen fuse from under the driver's seat
Then I connected the battery again and the horn continued to be on, non-stop!

Any ideas what that could be? I presumed a wire may have rubbed and has caused the horn to stay on, but not sure why that would cause it to try and turn itself in to a firework?!

...oh, and thanks to the lady for saying I was a f-ing idiot for parking Infront of a roadworks traffic light... Whilst the bonnet was up,thick smoke was gushing out the bonnet ...

If a wire wore through and contacted the body it would draw a lot of amps.
Line fused? Fuse rating too high for the cable? Faulty fuse? Intermittent contact with bodywork?

Your TD5 might must have the 2nd horn near the drivers headlight then if it's still going off.
If not then it must have been your BBUS sounder going off rather than the horn.

Thanks. It stopped when disconnecting the battery, so I assume the main horn (front left by headlight).
I presume the next step is checking every wire for rub against the chassis. Tedious!

robin.mckeith@googlemail. said:

Thanks. It stopped when disconnecting the battery, so I assume the main horn (front left by headlight).
I presume the next step is checking every wire for rub against the chassis. Tedious!

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I thought you said you disconnected the horn from the loom?
There is a battery disconnect procedure if your td5 has a bbus fitted.

It might be the horn button.
I had that once on my wife's car, I was out and my wife didn't know how to deal with it. When I got back the horn was red hot, been going off for half hour. Still worked after it cooled down which I was pleased about as it's a nice sounding horn.

Anaconda said:

<snip> which I was pleased about as it's a nice sounding horn.

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That's nice, does it have an 'i'd be awfully pleased if you wouldn't mind getting out of my way' tone to it ?

miktdish said:

That's nice, does it have an 'i'd be awfully pleased if you wouldn't mind getting out of my way' tone to it ?

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Just a nice classic car horn compared to modern cars.