I also discovered my horn doesn’t work anymore––I just hear a relay click when I honk. I checked the fuse, slot 40 on the dr side panel, and it was still good.
I’m hoping this is just an electrical connection. Does anyone know where that might be?
Should be located at the top of the core support. between the rad unit and your front bumper skin.
Yep and I think it wends it’s way driver side then down the radiator side to a connector about half way down. There’s a few things on that harness.
Ed
I’m going to some old pics from the last repair job and found this––are those 2 items front and center the horn(s)? Is that the connector I need to inspect?
Yep, that thing on the front with the 2 connectors is the horn. I thought I read somewhere else here that the horn itself does fail as well but I agree checking with those connectors would be a logical next step.
My car has finally completed the return trip from SEAsia back to the EU. Now I can try to tackle this project.
Before I start taking things apart, are there any easy things to check that might cause the horn to fail? I already checked the fuse on the driver side according to the manual.
If nothing else, then can some one post steps to gain access to the horn connectors? I don’t have to take the front end off, right?
Pretty sure the bumper has to come off - not sure how you would get to it without that out of the way.
ouch–can I shop for a different answer?!??
I did another OBD scan, and I see the following:
01134 - Alarm Horn (H12): No Signal/Communication
http://wiki.ross-tech.com/wiki/index.php/01134
But it seems that the Alarm Horn not the same as the horn connected to the steering wheel, right? Is there a link between the two that might cause this problem?
Yeah actually that code appears to point towards a separate horn for the alarm - which I didn’t realize existed. But you said your horn doesn’t work so perhaps it is interrelated. Does your alarm chirp when you lock the car with the fob?
Yes, the alarm horn does chirp when I lock the car with the fob. Ideas?
Any chance you had it at the dealership recently for the airbag recall? You could try pulling off the airbag on the steering wheel and seeing if anything is loose there. I watched a guy on youtube with a similar gen A3 restore his horn functionality after verifying the fuse was good by pulling the airbag and identifying a connector had come loose there. Outside of that I would probably pull the bumper and make sure the both connectors to the horn are on and not damaged. From there probably start tracing the harness back to ensure there are no cuts it in. This would also put you in position to test the horn itself to make sure they didn’t go bad.
no chance on the recall. Audi Malaysia said they were not “trained” to do the US recall. I could try Audi EU and see if they give a different answer.
But the front end was recently off to change a bunch of o-rings and the radiator core. So it is possible that they made a mistake when the put everything back together…
I have the same code for alarm horn. The alarm horn for the C6 S6 is in the left center cowl area, and has a lithium battery inside that goes bad. I have read that some have replaced the battery, but it requires splitting open the sealed case. I am eventually going to replace mine, other issues are a priority right now.
Got some sources you can point me to?
I’ve got a hard code that can’t be cleared for the horn (H12) since 2014. Never heard of the battery thing before. I would give replacement a try if I had more info.
I’ve got the same alarm horn code, can’t be cleared.
There are multiple posts around the web regarding the issue, and also multiple posts showing how to replace the Ni-MH battery.
It’s not always possible to just replace the battery as they sometimes leak and destroy the print.
I have that horn code (H12) but the alarm horn still chirps when I lock the doors. What does that mean?
Speaking of old codes, I’ve also had this code forever: 00797 - Sunlight Photo Sensor (G107). anyone else?
(back to the main horn issue)
Every time I’ve shipped my car by ship halfway around the world, I’ve had to replace the battery. This year appears to be no different (especially when preceded by 5 months of almost no driving during the Covid lockdown before shipping).
I got a CTEK charger/reconditioner to try to revive the battery after shipping, but 5+ jumpstarts in the past year seems to have done it in. The last time I got stranded was when I sat in the car for 1+ hours waiting to pick-up my daughter after a HS volleyball match. Apparently, just sitting in the car does NOT turn off the electrical system––I saw the dreaded “please start the engine or the electrical system will turn off in 3 mins” message flash in the warning panel, and by then it was too late.
The funny thing is that after the jumpstart, the horn magically started to work?!?? At least it did for the next day or so. As soon as I tried to demonstrate this miracle to my wife, it went silent again. And now it seems to stay that way.
So what does this suggest? Still a loose connection or a broken switch/relay somewhere? What should I check before I resort to removing the front-end to check the actual horn?
My guess is that the alarm works, mine does as well.
But if the main battery is disconnected the alarm horn will turn off due to the backup battery (within the alarm horn) being bad.
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