How long can a horn honk for?

Somewhere near by, there’s a horn honking. Just a single, unwavering honk: hoooooooooooooooooooon. (We haven’t gotten to the “k” yet.)

I’m guessing either there’s a malfunction or a car chase just came to an end. 

At some point, the battery will die, right? 

We’re already a few minutes into this. 

Back in college, I parked my '73 Capri in a residential neighborhood and walked to school.  When I came back several hours later, as I got closer to the car, I could hear that same steady horn tone you're hearing.  Turned out to be my car.  I got a LOT of dirty looks as I walked up to the car.    At that time it was common to use the horn as part of an alarm, and I assume they thought the alarm was screwed up, though that car never had one.  I popped the hood and pulled the wires off the horns.  Try as I might, I can't now come up with what caused it.

I'll bet it's a F150.

In the past they had a known problem at the horn contact behind the airbag

Sounds like a livestream should accompany this question.

The answer is yes, but it takes a WHILE.  Go buy some ear plugs 

Anectodal evidence: Some time in 1997, I leaned on the horn of my 1983 Toyota Corolla for what must have been 5 seconds and it died. Now, one must take into account that this car was bought new by my mom, and the only thing she did more frequently than cuss at other drivers was use the horn. 

I think I got a total of about 20sec of honking out of each cheapo Chinese horn I installed in my Samurai. The offroad rallying including the occasional submersion surely didn't do their lifespan any favors...

I've been dispatched to an accident with a tow truck and rolled up on the scene to find a horn still in mid honk a good 20 minutes after impact.

It stopped.

A week?

You guys need to hook one up to a battery and see how long it takes to drain it..........

Tom1200 said:

Yuo guys need to hook one up to a battery and see how long it takes to drain it..........

There are easier ways.

First, assume a spherical cow.

Find resistance of the horn, find resistance of wiring leading from battery to horn, do math, figure how many amp-hours the battery does.  Done.

When I respond to the scene of a car accident, it's very common for the horn to still be blasting away until I cut the battery cable.

Our towns tornado siren failed during its weekly test. They couldnt get it to stop and it died a slow and painful sounding death. I belive it ignited in its final death throws.

David S. Wallens said:

It stopped.

Based on post timing, that's roughly 1:40.

Tom1200 said:

Yuo guys need to hook one up to a battery and see how long it takes to drain it..........

This is the quality reporting based on actual testing that we expect from GRM.

Woody (Forum Supportum) said:

When I respond to the scene of a car accident, it's very common for the horn to still be blasting away until I cut the battery cable.

That was me. We pulled up on a scene with a horn blasting and I don't care what's going on, that horn got to stop before I can do anything else. 

In reply to Cousin_Eddie (Forum Supporter) :

Butter. 
 

In reply to alfadriver :

Truth be told, I didn’t make the initial post until after a bit. After listening to the honk for a while, I figured I should share with the rest of the class. 

In reply to Woody (Forum Supportum) :

NRBQ! God, those guys were fun in concert.

Years ago, during a torrential storm/rain there was a big clap of thunder and the horn in my Jeep Cherokee XJ went off. Don't know if it was actually struck by lightning or the sound set off the horn.  It was at night right around midnight and as I said it was a monsoon outside. I waited and waited for it to end................never did. 15 or 20 minutes went by with no abatement. That little bastard never let up. I finally ran out there, slid under the vehicle (I knew where the horn was) and clipped one of the wires leading to the horn and blessed quiet ensued. Can't explain it...........must have been a Jeep thing.

I once had a dome light magically turn on. Ghosts? 

All the way to the site of the crash?

Back in high school I had this ratty second gen Camaro and I was tooling around the neighborhood when some estranged friend of mine came by in his Camaro going the opposite direction. I was set to snub him with an ignore, but my stupid horn decided it would say hi to him. I kid you not, just as he's coming by the horn started honking on its own and he waved and I waved. So because of that short, 20 years later we're still pseudo- friends.