Horn Going Off by Itself ?!?!?...

[JRunner]

Hi All...

This is going to sound strange but I have to ask you guys if this has occurred to anyone else. New 2012 Santa Fe with factory remote start \ alarm (installed at the dealer). Had it for a few weeks now. Park it in the garage with our other vehicles. In the middle of the night I wake up to hearing a horn going off at irregular intervals for about 20 seconds. Since this was very sudden and startling to say the least, I waited to see if it would stop before running downstairs with the baseball bat . Also the alarm system on the home was not tripped so I hesitated to jump to that conclusion. So after what appeared to be 20 seconds the horn stopped and I grabbed the key fob and locked the doors twice and heard the confirmation horn beep. Now about the horn... like i said it wasn't at regular intervals as you so often hear as car alarms have. Instead it was irregular as if someone was just sitting in it and honking the horn as they wished. Second, the horn tone sounded like the loud horn on the Santa Fe. I say this because I've come to learn that all our other vehicles parked in the garage don't have horns as loud as the Santa Fe. This distinction I clearly picked up on from day one. Now at 4 in the AM is it possible I was wrong and it was one of the other vehicles?... possibly I guess, but the likelihood is not since I've had those other vehicles for a long time and this never happened before the Santa Fe.

Searched the boards and the net and haven't seen any similar reported issues. Has anyone else heard of this or experienced it?

Thanks in advance....

[lovemysantafe]

Welcome!

My guess is it's probably the hood/bonnet switch being slightly out of whack. There is a small rubber switch on the left (passenger) side of the radiator carrier frame when you open the hood and this meets up with a rubber plug mounted on the bottom of the hood. This tells the alarm system that the hood is closed and secure and if it is disturbed (seems to be rather touchy), it believes the hood is being tampered with and sounds the alarm. If the contact is intermittent, it may cause the symptoms you are experiencing.

Hopefully this is helpful.

[JRunner]

Originally Posted by lovemysantafe

Welcome!

My guess is it's probably the hood/bonnet switch being slightly out of whack. There is a small rubber switch on the left (passenger) side of the radiator carrier frame when you open the hood and this meets up with a rubber plug mounted on the bottom of the hood. This tells the alarm system that the hood is closed and secure and if it is disturbed (seems to be rather touchy), it believes the hood is being tampered with and sounds the alarm. If the contact is intermittent, it may cause the symptoms you are experiencing.

Hopefully this is helpful.

Thanks for the tip... I will take a look to see if I can find anything obvious wrong with it. Otherwise I will just have to wait and see if it happens again.

[TomcatVet]

Just unplug the wire to to switch as most hood switches are normally open and close when the hood is open. If it is the switch then the horn going off should stop. Otherwise check your key fobs. I had one with another car where one of the buttons would stick..

[JRunner]

Just an update... I figured out very little about what's going on with this horn since the initial post. I know now that it is the panic horn going off for no particular reason when parked and locked. I found this out buy accidentally pressing the panic button one day and the horn went off exactly in the same erratic manner that it did in the middle of the night. This is the first car \ truck I've owned that has a panic button horn that actually sounds like this. Not the usual beep beep beep I'm used to with panic buttons. So the question still remains as to why its doing this.

Either its something in the truck or maybe one of the key fobs circuit boards is faulty? Also have to check the panic button to make sure its not sticking as someone suggested.

Haven't brought it in yet for the dealer to look at it. I'm afraid they will waste my time, but I think I have no choice but to let them look at it.

[OnTheGround]

When I first bought my Civic a few years back the panic alarm would occasionally go off randomly in the middle of the night. After it happened 3 times or so I took it to the dealership and they determined that the sensitivity was too high, and cars passing by on the street, earthquakes, planes, whatever was vibrating the sensor at that time of night was just the right frequency and strong enough to make it think the car was being broken in to. Their solution was to turn down the sensitivity.

[JRunner]

Originally Posted by OnTheGround

When I first bought my Civic a few years back the panic alarm would occasionally go off randomly in the middle of the night. After it happened 3 times or so I took it to the dealership and they determined that the sensitivity was too high, and cars passing by on the street, earthquakes, planes, whatever was vibrating the sensor at that time of night was just the right frequency and strong enough to make it think the car was being broken in to. Their solution was to turn down the sensitivity.

Thanks for the info. I guess the question then is does the 2012 Santa Fe with Factory Remote start \ Alarm have a shock \ vibration sensor?

[TomcatVet]

Lock the car and then push/shake it and see. As you said the dealer installed the alarm are you sure it was a Hyundai one? Many of us paid for a factory hitch, for instance, to have the dealer install one from a local company....

[JRunner]

Originally Posted by TomcatVet

Lock the car and then push/shake it and see. As you said the dealer installed the alarm are you sure it was a Hyundai one? Many of us paid for a factory hitch, for instance, to have the dealer install one from a local company....

Its a genuine hyundai remote start \ alarm. Got the manual that came with the device and it has hyundai all over it. Plus I got hyundai replacement fobs, not aftermarket ones. This was one of my biggest concerns was to get a factory hyundai remote start, not an aftermarket with different fobs just for the remote start. The hyundai ones replace the factory hyundai non remote start fobs.

I think I've tried the shake it bang it thing but didn't set anything off. I will have to check the manual again to see if it mentions anything about a shock sensor. Just thought maybe someone here already knows the answer.

[mindseye]

Hello,

I don't know if this will be helpful or not, but I have read in the past that the hood switch may not be fully closed. In some cases this has caused the alarm to go off. Check the hood switch, and maybe put a small object on top of it before you close the hood. A chunk of an eraser or something so that it pushes the switch down further when you close the hood. This may solve your problem. If you do a search, I am sure you will find another thread regarding this. I'm too lazy to do that search myself.