Hi everyone, I am new to the forum as I picked up my XC70 used recently.

Yesterday (Mother's Day & raining) we went out to get into the car & barely got out of the driveway before the horn starts going off continuously. We couldn't get it to stop even when the car was off. Finally, in an attempt to pull the fuse we opened the hood latch and the horn went off immediately. Then we tried to start the car and go again and the same thing happened. We noticed that if you open the hood and jiggle the hood (latch?) a little it would go on and off.

Any hints what what's gone wrong?

Thanks,
Melanie

 

sounds like a wiring issue where the pressure of the hood being closed is shorting something. I assume if you pull the fuse and close the hood the horn stays off or does it start up again? I'd start by looking around for a pinched wire or out of place connector that the hood is able to press on. Does the hood/insulation make contact with the fuse box?

 

Hi & thanks for your response. We were thinking it must be something like this. Apparently the last time the horn was going off and then stopped it blew the fuse, because last night when we went out to check it it was blown. I found a few posts in other forums from people who had the problem that whenever they'd put a new fuse in, it would break right away (indicating a short, I presume).

The fuse box is under the hood and all the way on the right side. We looked for any obvious places where something could be pinched or otherwise screwing things up but couldn't find anything. I think we might have to take it into the shop.

 

I went to the auto parts store to get replacement fuses for the horn. When I put the new fuse in and tested the horn everything was fine but curiously even though I shut the hood my display said the hood was open. I opened the hood and discovered that a bunch of those little helicopter tree seeds were in the hole where the hood latch goes into. I blew it out and then closed the hood again and I no longer got the hood open warning. It hasn't gotten stuck again, keeping my fingers crossed.