2018 LEAF Horn Upgrade DIY

[Billdit]

Personally I would not install additional horns to existing wiring without a 12 volt relay wired to the battery. Will soon be installing 3 new AC Delco horns wired to a relay, triggered by the stock horn wiring. Have done this to previous vehicles, including a motorcycle. The 3 different toned horns produce a diesel train sound. Loud and awesome. These are the same horns used on a 1996 Cadillac Deville. Each horn draws 3.5 amps (11 amps total). Instead of accessing stock horn, hope to identify and trace wiring from fuse or horn ring? Place a switch at that location to be able to switch between stock and the 3 new horns. This way when inflating the tires I can switch it to stock and not go deaf when reaching the proper psi. I have yet to have to inflate tires but read that when reaching proper psi the horn is triggered. The horns are AC Delco D1922C, D1923C, and D1925C, which produce a F- low, D- super low, and A- high note. Available at any online auto or amazon or Walmart. If you love an attention getting train sound that takes up little room, and draws very little power, this is it! Will provide details on install after completion.

 

[Lhorigan]

Hey OrientExpress, thanks for the great write up and photos. My girlfriend was kind enough to let me perform this upgrade on her new leaf. Only having the vehicle for a few weeks, I had too many close calls when driving with the embarrassing horn.

I opted to go about the mounting in a slightly different location, but was able to take a lot of great ideas from contributors here to put together a really solid upgrade. I'll include the links for the stuff I purchased on amazon. Generally I didn't have too many of the electrical kits, so I ended up spending a lot more on those items, but I'm glad I have them now.

Horn - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000DLBIGG/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Wire - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07818RTG2/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Connectors - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B014WQZADE/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Wire sleeve - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B071JH14WZ/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Shrink tube - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B072PCQ2LW/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I purchased these plastic tools (plastic snap tool is metal) for another project. I can say they have come in handy for projects like this. I would highly recommend them to anyone looking to work on their car.

Tools - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01L8GHB7O/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I can't figure out how to post my images from my fix, but I'll try to work that out. Thanks again everyone!

 

[teambleifuss]

Hello. I just recently purchased a 2018 Leaf and joined this forum. I found that the stock horn was anemic and appreciate your write up as it provided a lot of useful information. There is one correction that needs to be made. A pair of Hella Super tone horns draw 14 amps, which is far more than 18 gauge wire can support. Hella recommends that we install a relay, which is how I did it. The main power from source to the relay should be 12 gauge and have a 16 amp fuse per Hella. The positive wire from the relay to the horns can be 14 gauge. Since I bought a roll of 12 gauge for this job I used it. I also used the same gauge to ground the horns to the chassis. There are two more spades on the relay and these get connected to the original horn wires. 18 gauge is sufficient for this as it merely provides a signal to the relay.

You might be able to get away with running 18 gauge from the original horn connectors to the new horns if your honks are short but the horns will not be able to draw the current they are designed for and will not be as loud. There is a risk of overheating the conductors and a failure in the harness would be a real drag.

 

[OrientExpress]

I’ve been installing these Hellas since 2011 in LEAFs and never had an issue.

You are more that welcome to over think the install, but my method is solid, and and proven in lots of LEAFS both gen 1 and 2 that have them installed as shown. The worst that can happen is if the wiring is installed without regard to a floating or chassis ground, and that will just pop the fuse.

 

[tomseid]

Thanks so much for this great instructions. I used them to install a new horn in my 2018 (the original horn is truly pathetic) and found a way to do this without having to install additional wiring or open any additional compartments under the hood. Here's what I did;

1- Bought a Wolo Bad Boy horn for the install. These are available online or at Harbor Freight for about $30. Not the loudest aftermarket horn around but plenty loud enough for my purposes (and WAY louder than the original).



2- Once the wheel well liner was off, I disconnected the wiring to the original horn, per the instructions above (BTW, the original horn can be removed if you have a small 12mm wrench- you just need to reach up and feel around for the single bolt that attaches it, and then unbolt it).

3- There is a small inverted plastic well right below the horn area. I drilled a hole through that well from below, put a single washer over the bolt that comes with the Bad Boy horn, and inserted that bolt through the hole.



4- Attach the horn wires from the Leaf to the new horn (brown to positive, black to negative) . The connectors are the same size as on the old horn, so they fit perfectly.

5- Put 3 washers on the bolt so the horn will set level on the plastic well. Put the nut that comes with the bolt horn into the little metal connector flange on the horn, and then screw the bolt into the nut and tighten.



6- That's it! Now just follow the original instructions for re-attaching the wheel well liner and putting the wheel/tire back on.

Can't tell you how great it is to have a horn that actually gets people's attention. Once again, thank you for posting these instructions!

 

[tomseid]

A postscript to the above- the Bad Boy horn lived up to it's name and blew the horn fuse. I upped the fuse from a 10A to a 15A, but if it happens again, I'm afraid I'll have to install a relay.

 

[SanCarlosJeff]

A postscript to the above- the Bad Boy horn lived up to it's name and blew the horn fuse. I upped the fuse from a 10A to a 15A, but if it happens again, I'm afraid I'll have to install a relay.

How much honking did you have to do to blow the fuse?

TIA

 

[estomax]

the stock wires were not terribly large when i upgraded my horn, certainly not 14 AWG that a 15 amp fuse would require.. careful not to melt/damage anything in your harness! the 'correct' fix would be to wire the stock horn wires to a relay that triggers a new fused circuit from the battery, but that gets messy in it's own way.

Marko

 

[lorenfb]

My horn update today took less than a hour. Only about half of the front section of the fender liner needed to be removed.
Once access to the original horn is gained, one just needs to remove the 10 mm nut and lock washer. The replacement horn
that was used is available from Pep Boys (Wolo, 385-2T) for $22. That horn draws about four amps and has the same size spade
connectors as the original horn. The physical size of the 385-2T is just a little bigger, but fits nicely on the original bracket. A couple
of zip-ties to a strong rigid mount near the horn were used to minimize the vibrations of the original cantilevered horn bracket.
The sound volume from the replacement horn is about typical of most American vehicles.

 

[powersurge]

I also installed the Harborfreight "Bad Boy". It is loud and annoying enough, and is small. The only issues I have had with it is when it is raining VERY hard, or when the temps go down to single digits, it only make a tiny vibration noise for a while.

PS - I would try to not mount the horn inside the engine compartment. The sound will be muffled in there... Best is near the bumper or nose of the car...???

 

[OrientExpress]

I would try to not mount the horn inside the engine compartment. The sound will be muffled in there...

For the New LEAF inside the engine compartment gives it the most air and it is loudest there. The area around the bumper cover and radiator opening is completely sealed unless you want to remove the front bumper cover to install your horn. For the first generation LEAFs I recommend putting the horn where the stock one is in front of the radiator.

 

[lorenfb]

As usual, some like to overthink a simple solution, i.e. it doesn't require anymore complexity than the Leaf1
15 minute horn update.

 

[gibacca]

So I've been unsuccessfully trying to find a similar writeup for the 2019 SL plus, it may be too early to expect one so soon after it was released. I would assume they have not changed the stock horn positioning, but I have not looked myself. I will soon have time to spend on this project, and will report what I find here. I purchased the FIAMM Grande horn, I used one successfully on the 2013 Leaf I had. I used the brackets supplied with the horn for the 2013 mount, but purchased L-shaped brackets for this project (they hold the horns better because 2 bolts hold the brackets together). I am plotting on bending these at the ends so the horns wind up next to each other - this way they may fit in the original location, which would be my preference...

 

[OrientExpress]

The 19 Plus is exactly the same.

 

[Dala]

I upgraded to a 28 year old horn Now I got that mid 90s Nissan sound

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifi-SACWG50

 

[OrientExpress]

That sounds like a warning horn from a big industrial shop!

 

[LeftieBiker]

Reminds me of my "giant angry squirrel" electric bicycle "horn."

 

[gibacca]

So as I was planning earlier, I upgraded the horn of the 2019 SL Plus to a set of FIAMM Grandes.

Here are a few observations from the install:

- I did not need to take down the entire wheel well - just the part that is immediately below the washer fluid tank (and the bottom shroud as well, just 1 screw) - that forward portion of the wheel well bends down; the opening is not large, but it is usable; also - the SL Plus has the blue accent strip that I found hard to remove - if that can be removed, the access gets a lot better.
- I used 2 L brackets from Ace hardware that I connected together with 2 bolts/nuts to form a T bracket, then bent the bracket into a U shape, so after mounting the horns, they sort of face each other, and the whole contraption is more compact as a result; the upper bolt/nut combo is also used for mounting.
- I was able to fit my 2 horns through the opening, and with some scraped hands and a lot of cursing I was able to tighten the mounting bolt on the same tab the original horn was mounted on; the contraption hangs freely, and it seems there is plenty of space going towards the middle of the car; I used a normal socket wrench and pliers together to tighten the 1 bolt/nut (with washers on both sides) the contraption is hanging on.
- After sealing everything back up, I'll admit the horn could have been louder in a different position (such as the engine compartment), but I am happy I was able to install it in the same spot as the original horn.
- It took me several hours to do this, mostly trying to figure out how to position the horn contraption and how to tighten the mounting bolt.

So the bottom line is the new horns CAN be mounted in the same location as the original with a little bit of elbow grease, and the whole wheel well does not need to be removed. Sorry I have no pictures, but I tried to make the description as detailed as possible.

 

[Lothsahn]

Is it possible to make it harder to accidentally hit the horn?

Turning on the cruise control I accidentally bump the horn, and it's WAY easier to activate than any other vehicle I've driven. I wouldn't want to do a horn upgrade unless I could make sure I don't accidentally set it off.

I was thinking a good old lighthouse fog horn would make a great upgrade. :-D

 

[ZAli]

So as I was planning earlier, I upgraded the horn of the 2019 SL Plus to a set of FIAMM Grandes.

Here are a few observations from the install:

- I did not need to take down the entire wheel well - just the part that is immediately below the washer fluid tank (and the bottom shroud as well, just 1 screw) - that forward portion of the wheel well bends down; the opening is not large, but it is usable; also - the SL Plus has the blue accent strip that I found hard to remove - if that can be removed, the access gets a lot better.
- I used 2 L brackets from Ace hardware that I connected together with 2 bolts/nuts to form a T bracket, then bent the bracket into a U shape, so after mounting the horns, they sort of face each other, and the whole contraption is more compact as a result; the upper bolt/nut combo is also used for mounting.
- I was able to fit my 2 horns through the opening, and with some scraped hands and a lot of cursing I was able to tighten the mounting bolt on the same tab the original horn was mounted on; the contraption hangs freely, and it seems there is plenty of space going towards the middle of the car; I used a normal socket wrench and pliers together to tighten the 1 bolt/nut (with washers on both sides) the contraption is hanging on.
- After sealing everything back up, I'll admit the horn could have been louder in a different position (such as the engine compartment), but I am happy I was able to install it in the same spot as the original horn.
- It took me several hours to do this, mostly trying to figure out how to position the horn contraption and how to tighten the mounting bolt.

So the bottom line is the new horns CAN be mounted in the same location as the original with a little bit of elbow grease, and the whole wheel well does not need to be removed. Sorry I have no pictures, but I tried to make the description as detailed as possible.

Thanks for providing some feedback. I also have a 19 SL Plus and was wondering what I might expect to encounter when I finally undertake this upgrade.