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Comment by nhecker

6 hours ago

I can corroborate this finding -- I think the horn switch is just a logic-level digital switch going into one or more MCUs somewhere, subjected to all manner of latency and (probably) CANBUS jitter. It's not great. Trying to send Morse, or even a quick 'toot toot' results in a garbled mangled mess, and I find that very annoying. My early cars & motorbike had what felt like direct, switched control over power to the horn, those were great to use. I've debated installing a dedicated pushbutton rated for the amperage or at least controlling a solenoid somewhere that would power the horn.

As an experiment, I've found that you can reliably detect the presence of crummy horn control by trying to pulse the horn for the shortest amount of time possible. The shorter my push on the horn button gets, the more likely it is that the timing will feel wrong somehow, or the horn doesn't even sound at all.

I've definitely tried friendly beeps at friends or neighbors and it came out sounding like an angry honk.