Horn intermittent - not the spiral cable

Ok, my 97 Toyota Avalon horn only works intermittently when I turn the
steering wheel. After $500 later and the Toyota dealer changing the
spiral cable it still does not work. They said my steering wheel was
bent and I needed a new one ($900). This didn't make sense, so I
decided to do some tests. I took off steering wheel and spiral calbe
and did some ohms test and all ok.

Found out that the steering wheel column is not consistently grounded.
If I turned steering wheel is is sometimes grounded. If I push up on
the top part of the steering wheel very hard, then it is always
grounded.

The "bent steering wheel" does not make any sense, possibly if there
was some issue with it turning the spiral cable I guess. But. this is
not the issue.

Any ideas what is going on?

Should the steering wheel column always be grounded?

Thanks!

<ronscottlangham@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1126967641.048111.81000@z14g2000cwz.googlegro ups.com...
> Ok, my 97 Toyota Avalon horn only works intermittently when I turn the
> steering wheel. After $500 later and the Toyota dealer changing the
> spiral cable it still does not work. They said my steering wheel was
> bent and I needed a new one ($900). This didn't make sense, so I
> decided to do some tests. I took off steering wheel and spiral calbe
> and did some ohms test and all ok.
>
> Found out that the steering wheel column is not consistently grounded.
> If I turned steering wheel is is sometimes grounded. If I push up on
> the top part of the steering wheel very hard, then it is always
> grounded.
>
> The "bent steering wheel" does not make any sense, possibly if there
> was some issue with it turning the spiral cable I guess. But. this is
> not the issue.
>
> Any ideas what is going on?
>
> Should the steering wheel column always be grounded?
>
> Thanks!

Could it be that the steering column is bent and not the steering wheel? I
can understand how an electrical contact dependant upon the turning steering
column would be disturbed or interrupted if the column was bent.

Is anything other than the horn affected? I don't know how the Toyota
steering column is constructed but, I had problems with a Ford that affected
the horn and some other circuits and it turned out to be something called a
"multi-function" switch in the steering column.
--

Ron P

Just remember....if the world didn't suck, we'd all fall off.

<ronscottlangham@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1126967641.048111.81000@z14g2000cwz.googlegro ups.com...
> Ok, my 97 Toyota Avalon horn only works intermittently when I turn the
> steering wheel. After $500 later and the Toyota dealer changing the
> spiral cable it still does not work. They said my steering wheel was
> bent and I needed a new one ($900). This didn't make sense, so I
> decided to do some tests. I took off steering wheel and spiral calbe
> and did some ohms test and all ok.
>
> Found out that the steering wheel column is not consistently grounded.
> If I turned steering wheel is is sometimes grounded. If I push up on
> the top part of the steering wheel very hard, then it is always
> grounded.

Unfortunately, I do not have an electrical wiring diagram for the 97 Avalon
and the factory service manual does not have information on the horn.

Check the fuse box under the dashboard and make sure the harness is solidly
connected. Pushing on the steering wheel could be stretching something
underneath.
>
> The "bent steering wheel" does not make any sense, possibly if there
> was some issue with it turning the spiral cable I guess. But. this is
> not the issue.
>
> Any ideas what is going on?

Check the pins in the connecor from the steering wheel to the spiral cable
and from the spiral cable to the harness and make sure they are not loose or
bent. Check the horn switch itself and make sure it is not bad. Check the
horn fuse and make sure it is solid in its holder.

Are any aftermarket accessories installed in the car like GPS, security
system, auxiliary power, etc.?

>
> Should the steering wheel column always be grounded?
>
> Thanks!
>
I doubt if the steering column is the source of the ground for the horn
because most of the column and steering components are isolated with rubber
from the rest of the chassis. More likely, the circuit for the horn switch
is grounded at the horn relay.
--
Ray O
correct the return address punctuation to reply

The person at the dealership was saying the steering wheel and even
discussed how much it cost because of the air bag. A bent steering
column would make more sense, but hopefully this is not the case either
:)

Thanks!

Thanks for the things to look at, I will do this.

We checked the pins in the spiral cable and they all seem to be fine.
We did numerous tests on the spiral cable and it seems to be ok. The
same with the horn switch. The steering column does seem to be the
source for the ground. It is connected to a metal frame in the
steering wheel and this serves as one side of the horn switch. I
shorted the steering column bolt (that holds the steering wheel) to the
car frame using a jumper cable and the horn worked every time.

I also did a ohm test between the steering column bolt and ground. It
was Open until either I pushed up on the wheel firmly or turned it from
side to side (the same as needed to make the horn work). When I would
do this, the steering column would show as being grounded.

So, I am thinking that the steering column should always be grounded,
but for some reason its not unless moved in the right area.

There are not other aftermarket items added. Nothing else on the
steering wheel other than the airbag and horn. All the items on the
column such as wipers, cruise control, etc all work fine. Possibly
they rely on a different ground than the column.

Thanks again

<ronscottlangham@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1126987438.532540.165530@g14g2000cwa.googlegr oups.com...
> The person at the dealership was saying the steering wheel and even
> discussed how much it cost because of the air bag. A bent steering
> column would make more sense, but hopefully this is not the case either
> :)
>
> Thanks!
>
The steering column would take a pretty large force to bend. The steering
wheel frame is probably a little easier to bend or warp.
--
Ray O
correct the return address punctuation to reply

<ronscottlangham@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1126988335.315737.102330@g43g2000cwa.googlegr oups.com...
> Thanks for the things to look at, I will do this.
>
> We checked the pins in the spiral cable and they all seem to be fine.
> We did numerous tests on the spiral cable and it seems to be ok. The
> same with the horn switch. The steering column does seem to be the
> source for the ground. It is connected to a metal frame in the
> steering wheel and this serves as one side of the horn switch. I
> shorted the steering column bolt (that holds the steering wheel) to the
> car frame using a jumper cable and the horn worked every time.
>
> I also did a ohm test between the steering column bolt and ground. It
> was Open until either I pushed up on the wheel firmly or turned it from
> side to side (the same as needed to make the horn work). When I would
> do this, the steering column would show as being grounded.
>
> So, I am thinking that the steering column should always be grounded,
> but for some reason its not unless moved in the right area.

If that is the case, the easy solution is to run a ground wire from the
column to a good ground.

>
> There are not other aftermarket items added. Nothing else on the
> steering wheel other than the airbag and horn. All the items on the
> column such as wipers, cruise control, etc all work fine. Possibly
> they rely on a different ground than the column.
>
> Thanks again
>
You're welcome!
--
Ray O
correct the return address punctuation to reply

ronscottlangham@yahoo.com wrote in news:1126967641.048111.81000
@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com:

> Ok, my 97 Toyota Avalon horn only works intermittently when I turn the
> steering wheel. After $500 later and the Toyota dealer changing the
> spiral cable it still does not work. They said my steering wheel was
> bent and I needed a new one ($900). This didn't make sense, so I
> decided to do some tests. I took off steering wheel and spiral calbe
> and did some ohms test and all ok.
>
> Found out that the steering wheel column is not consistently grounded.
> If I turned steering wheel is is sometimes grounded. If I push up on
> the top part of the steering wheel very hard, then it is always
> grounded.
>
> The "bent steering wheel" does not make any sense, possibly if there
> was some issue with it turning the spiral cable I guess. But. this is
> not the issue.
>
> Any ideas what is going on?
>
> Should the steering wheel column always be grounded?
>
> Thanks!
>

run a scab ground to colomn and kiss your 500 bucks goodbye, i would find a
dealer that doesnt do hi dollar repairs on a hunch. IOW, sounds like a
ripoff.........kjun

Ok, I got it fixed. Most likely it was not the spiral cable in the
first place, but this is apparently the cause of this type of problem
most of the time.

I took it back to the dealer last week and showed them that the
steering column was not grounded (and nothing to do with a bent
steering wheel or spiral cable). Since the spiral cable work was still
under guarantee they agreed that they would take a second look. They
attached another grounding cable to the steering column and this still
did not fix it. After digging around more in the column they found
that there were some bearings that were rusted. Apparently the
bearings serve as the column ground rather than the grounding straps
connected to the outside column area. They cleaned up the rust and
the problem went away!! They didn't charge me for this. So, it is
finally fixed and happy now that they came through and got this
annoying problem finally resolved.