Yes, the Micra is a bit pathetic when you give a carp on the horn (or a light horn as described by one poster). On a more serious note, it could be dangerous as the horn is about the only way you can alert a sleepy lorry/bus driver to your presence when he starts moving into your lane.
Problem is that a light horn does tend to enrage some people.
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I used to have a Triumph 1300TC and, if I remember correctly, (it was in 1968) it had classy sounding twin horns as standard which you could adjust to alter the tone.
I think twin horns sound much better and, on a safety point, attract more attention.
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You can still buy single note air horns. I always used to fit them (they were called 'Maserati'IIRC)to every car I owned. But only as a supplement to the original one fitted as standard.
The logic was that you could use the quieter one around town and for polite use of the horn as a warning on the approach to hazards etc (see Roadcraft for more on this) without causing undue annoyance........whilst the air horns could be used on the open road under similar circumstances as above but where they need to be more powerful to be heard. They were operated by a seperate dash/column mounted lever type switch.
I admit to having stopped fitting them now, however they may fit the bill for the encounters described above. And I agree that most standard horns don't sound very effective unless we're taking about more expensive cars (BMW/Merc) which sound like dual tone horns and do sound more 'up to the job'.
KB.
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No KB the standard single horn has got to go it sounds ridiculous
The next time I am forced to use it I will probably look in my rear view mirrow and witness people rolling on their backs laughing :-).
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Mal, I know what you mean! Before my Granny I had a piddling little Uno. The horn on that (when it worked) was laughable. Sort of "Excuse me. Awfully sorry to bother you, but if you wouldn't mind just moving to one side. So sorry to be a nuisance." But the Granny has a twin horn thingy fitted to it by the previous owner which is more like "Get out of the way NOW! I'm comin' through!!" It doesn't half make dozy blighters jump!
And, just to slide back into busland (you just knew I was going to, didn't you?), the horns that are fitted to our buses are pathetic. The single-decker Volvos are on a par with my old Uno and the double deckers aren't much better. Scanias and DAFs, though sound magnificent - just like those fire-engines that sound their horns as well as their sirens.
Right, time for my medication...
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Sorry Rob, but what car is known as a granny.
Simple answer please, we do *not* want to be silly again.
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>>Sorry Rob, but what car is known as a granny.
>>Simple answer please, we do *not* want to be silly again.
Good Lord, perish the thought. Anyway, I can't be silly as I haven't had a drink!
Granny = Granada. Easy when you know how! ;-)
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I have a problem here.
All this talk of horns - is that something different/extra to a traditional hooter? And if so, why are they needed?
My Vx has quite a nice sounding hooter, which has only so far been tested when I lean accidentally on the steering wheel. Came as quite a surprise after driving my little Renault 5 for such a long time.
HF
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HF - you can get different types of horns (if you'll pardon the expression) from car accessory shops - remember 'la cucaracha' (doodly-doo-doooo, doodly-doo-doooo, doodly-doodly-doo)?
I think that Mal has amply demonstrated why they are needed - sometimes the horn you are provided with by the car maker is simply embarrassing and you feel the need to embelish.
I keep on accidentally carping every time I put my Stoplock on - the bar bit of it always gently taps the middle of the steering wheel. Oh well...
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Rob: Get a Micra and you won't need the stop lock. I speak from experience.
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>>Rob: Get a Micra and you won't need the stop lock. I speak from experience
Leif, do you mean that it has impenetrable locks and security, or it's such a pile of fetid dingo's kidneys that nobody would bother to steal it? ;-)
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Rob: It is a nice car with a poor image. Sadly.
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RTB - I'm afraid I have no knowledge of la cucaracha doodly-doo-dooooo, doodly-doo-doooo, doodly-doodly-doo!! Maybe it's an age thing?
HF ;)
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>>Maybe it's an age thing?
Not at all HF. It's an old South American sounding type song thing. If I could sing it over the ether to you I would.
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Not at all HF. It's an old South American sounding type song thing. If I could sing it over the ether to you I would.
Wow we must get microphones!!
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Could you get away with an LAPD police siren? I have a Taiwanese one fitted and it shifts the opposition PDQ.
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There are laws about horns; I am not sure of all the details but I do remember it means, as you would expect in this country, that anything useful is illegal just as with driving generally.
I rarely use a horn, but if ever I do I want it to be noticed.
Tomo
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The Brits are so reticent about horns, even the though of using one seems to bring on red-faced embarrassment, which has resulted in what is probably (a) an acceptance of those measly little tooters they fit over there along with (b) a bonus to manufacturers because they don't need to fit a decent unit.
I don't care, I would want something which delivers a loud and authoritative blast which says "hey watchit you" instead of "oops ooh so sorry please but I rather feel you shouldn't have done what you did and please forgive me for pointing it out, so sorry". Better to emit emphatic warning noises and wake the ******s up by telling 'em you won't stand for it than do daft retaliatory stuff by cutting people up or indulging in threatening driving.
Where I live unless you sound your horn you don't exist anyway. Your bit of road space is automatically someonme else's unless you defend it by all means possible. Wow you should hear our buses. Like the Grimsthorpe Colliery end of shift siren only louder.
The car supermarkets carry a neat little made in China warning device which provides a control box fitted inside the car. You can vary the horn note to frog, pig, police woop-woop, bull, and a couple of other sounds when you get bored of whatever one you're using at the moment. Makes life a bit more colourful...
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>>The car supermarkets carry a neat little made in China warning device which provides a control box fitted inside the car. You can vary the horn note to frog, pig, police woop-woop, bull, and a couple of other sounds when you get bored of whatever one you're using at the moment. Makes life a bit more colourful...
I used to have something like that on my bike when I was about ten. It was great!
I think, though, that the UK fun-police have decreed (probably quite sensibly, if you think about it) that there should only be one sound allowed. I'm not too sure though. Where's DVD when you want him...?! ;-)
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In the sixties I fitted my GT Cortina with a pair of (very loud) air horns wired in parallel with the original, using appropriate relays etc.
For 'excuse me' occasions a light tap would sound the original horn only (insufficient time for pressure buildup to operate the air horns).
For LOOK OUT! occasions, the whole orchestral effect was dramatic. Maybe defeated their purpose on one occasion when I leaned on the horn as a Landrover type vehicle started rolling back at me at a set of traffic lights. The driver and passenger were visibly propelled vertically off their seats. Ah the joys of youth ...
Oz (as was)
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I have to admit that the sirens on emergency vehicles can have the opposite to the desired effect. If crossing a road on foot, and an emergency vehicle appears sirens on full, I find the noise makes me freeze. It is something to do with being disorientated I think.
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Just for you Rob:
Regulation 37 Motor Vehicles (Con & use) regs 1986:
Every motor vehicle with a maximum speed of more than 20 mph shall be fitted with a horn not being a reversing alarm, or two tone horn. The sound emitted by any horn othern than reversing alarm and two tone horn fitted to a vehicvle first used after 1.8.73 shall be:
continuous and uniform and not strident.
It then goes on to say that two tone horns shall not be fitted except to certain vehicles i.e. emrgency services etc.
So it would seem that certain hooters mentioned are not quite legal.
Point in the reg of interest is that car alarms causing the horn to sound, by law have to cut out after 5 minutes and shall be kept in good working order.
DVD
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"oops ooh so sorry please but I rather feel you shouldn't have done what you did and please forgive me for pointing it out, so sorry"
LOL. If only UK drivers were like that. Ealing comedies are not a true representation of UK life you know! Actually I prefer a light burst on the klaxon (*) to alert someone to my presence rather than a "I'm really really miffed" burst that tends to really annoy others. Using a loud burst to say "I am in the lane you are moving in to" has twice got me into a really nasty situation where I thought physical assault was a real possibility. Best avoided.
(*) A new word just to confuse HF! :>
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I have to admit swapping the rather teeny hooter on the Skoda with the somewhat meatier twin-tone ones on SWMBO's Cavalier before we sold the Cav... Well a lot of the punters can't hear it through double glazing, and I don't want to be getting out of the car to go ringing doorbells every 20 minutes, do I? ;-)
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Actually I prefer a light burst on the klaxon (*) to alert someone to my presence ...
I recall one Saturday afternoon, taking a spirited drive up a local motorway. There is a large hill there, where the speed tails off to about 80 (if you hit the bottom at 90!).
The road was pretty quiet, and I went hammering up the hill in the right hand lane. As I was approaching the top, a VERY loud klaxon started up behind me - a middle aged gent in a huge open 'Blower' Bentley of considerable age, most upset that I was impeding his progress.
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