17 replies to this topic

[majorj0nny]

I found an old Nautilus compact air horn in my shed and easily fitted it to my mini .... sounds great I think...

however - I then remembered in the past with cars I used to own, I used to change the standard horn for air horns (but the more traditional compressor, tubes and twin trumpet types.. though I also remember while the cars never failed an MOT just because of the air horns, the air horns were either mentioned in the advisory or included in the list of fails ? I never remember having to swap the horns back to the standard electric horn though ....

is it just that air horns are instant MOT fails, or is it to do with the loudness of them or what ?

[purple_fly06]

as long as it is a blare and not a tune it is fully legal

[SA MINI]

Ive never ever had any issues with air horns. I even had a train horn once that passed mot
I know musical horns are illegal though. So is using any horn after 6 pm I think it is

[purple_fly06]

I know in the highway code you cant use your horn any time after 11.30pm & 7am....never heard of it being forced upon people not to use it after 6

[maccers]

 paddy.JPG   42.07K   33 downloads

Do you think this one would pass?

[AndyMiniMad.]

Must have done!!

[purple_fly06]

 paddy.JPG   42.07K   33 downloads

Do you think this one would pass?

The probably never stated it as the car horn, its an acessory

[6joshh6]

provided that you have a single tone horn wired up and working on the car its legal :)

[bipa]

 paddy.JPG   42.07K   33 downloads

Do you think this one would pass?

Wow the scrap men in London really go for it!
I had a dixie ( dukes of hazzard ) air horn on my mini when I first got it, it was wired to a separate switch and I still had the standard horn too. It passed fine.

Edited by bipa, 15 June 2012 - 04:20 PM.

[robtheplod]

provided that you have a single tone horn wired up and working on the car its legal :)

so, if you leave your current horn as it is, but add additional music horns on a seperate switch - is this legal?

[tiger99]

I don't think so, but if you don't ever actuate the switch while on the road, and it is not obvious to the MOT tester, you might get away with it. Off road, and away from residential properties, use your discretion. Personally, I prefer to stick to what I know to be legal.

Incidentaly, the regulations used to, and probably still do say of horns that they must not be "strident". Not a precise definition, but probably inadvisable to push your luck with a set of umpteen air horns, not properly tuned with respect to each other.

[majorj0nny]

I wonder if this was raised in the past due to having 2 tone air horns ?

[DanFuke]

provided that you have a single tone horn wired up and working on the car its legal :)

I swear halfords sell a two. Tone replacement horn?

[majorj0nny]

i use this at the moment - http://www.stebel.it...asp?IDserie=6&;

though technically its a two tone air horn.

I dunno if the 'rules' are that car horns can change tone - ie musical or police siren style!? though a two tone airhorn might be 2 different sounds, they are together and constant I suppose ?

[majorj0nny]

now found this -

"

It is illegal to use any type of horn that emits more than one tone, unless the tones are simultaneous. There are no exceptions.

Emergency vehicles on route are an exception."

im getting the impression there is confusion amongst the MOTers Ive had testing my cars in the past - Ive never had an air horn that was capable of sounding one trumpet after another in the same way emergency vehicles do... it seems that you can have 2 tone so long as the tones occur (start and finish) at the same time as eachother.

I can see the reasoning behind this - people need to recognise an emergency vehicle from a family run around or boy racer .. lol