What would be the downside to upgrading the stock Prius horn by a direct replacement of something like a PIAA or Hella? When I say direct replacement I mean using the stock Toyota relay and all and just swapping out the horns themselves. BTW - It's cold and wet outside so I haven't looked yet , but does anyone know the Prius horn(s) location Is it behind the front bumper?
http://www.sigmaauto.com/horns/horns.php http://priuschat.com/Whereand39s-that-horn-t14746.html here you go.......
I don't need a link to buy horns or a thread where someone doesnt like where the horn button is. I guess you didn't understand my question. The Hella and PIAA horns come with a relay to directly wire them to the 12V battery. I'm asking if there's a down side to not doing this and just changing out the horns (keeping everything else as it is). The worst case scenario I see is that the current draw could be too high and you'd pop a fuse. I searched and found nothing here. Has anyone swapped out their horns?
I have without a problem. I swapped out the originals with two Hella horns from Griot's Garage website but wasn't satisfied with "the difference" so just last weekend I added a third horn. An air horn from GG also. It came with a relay which protects "the circuit" from drawing too much current. I had them installed by Circuit City but could have easily done it myself (now that I've seen it done). The front bumper had to be removed for easier access to the area between the front grill and the radiator. I'm pleased as heck now! It sounds like a cross between a Cadillac and a Semi-tractor. Of course I haven't found a need to use it since.
I have swapped horns in my previous car with the "HIGHWAY BLASTER" low & high tone. I did not try the airhorns. The low tone was okay, but the high tone was great...except that the horns kept dying every 6 months! My recommendation is that you stay with your stock horn, BUT if you insist on upgrading you can't go wrong with double air horns :evil grin: Never had a fuse blow out or burnt cables.
If you wire them directly to the 12V battery, there's no fuse to pop. Unless you're talking about a fuse on the Horn? Worst case I'd worry about is if there is some voltage leakage through the relay and horn, leaving your battery dead after awhile, but that really shouldn't be a worry. Resistance through the Horn is constant. 12 volts is 12 volts, no matter whether you hook it up directly to the battery or somewhere else. Current equals Voltage divided by Resistance, so the Current also remains the same and wouldn't take off out of control. So I say there's no down side, but Be Careful!
Thanks to all for their input. I'm gonna go with the Hella Supertones (300 & 500 Hz). I don't know the impedance of the stock and Hella horns. Hopefully, they'll be similar so the current draw won't change. Here's hoping the plug-n-play solution works out well.
This is something I'm probably going to get to in the next couple months. I saved this link that shows the procedure: http://www.vfaq.net/mods/Horns.html
You can reach the stock horn by pulling out the fog lamp grill on the passenger side (carefully, tabs and hooks are tricky-you may break one tab by the foglight lense, but it will still snap back together). Reach up and squeeze the short edge of the connector on the passenger side and it will come off the stock horn when you pull it down. Push this through the slotted "grill" and you can just get enough wire room to put on a 3M blue jumper connector to feed +12V to your new horn.
