Tweet
Hello!
I have a 1995 Firebird Convertible, 3.8 Ltr., that has the radio/CD controls on the steering wheel. I bought the car when it had 95,000 miles on it and it now has 180,000 miles on it. Over the years some strange problems have started popping up.
The radio controls on the steering wheel worked fine when I first bought the car in 2004. Gradually, they stopped working at all. I didn’t mind enough to pay to have it fixed as long as I could still adjust the radio with the manual controls in the dash.
But then, a few years ago the radio started increasing the volume by itself when I turned corners. It would get so loud it was painful. The frequency of the volume problem started to diminish only to be replaced by a new one: the radio started changing channels by itself!
Whenever I would get in and start the car, the radio would scan (without ME touching the controls) by itself and usually land on a station I can’t stand. What’s worse, it refused to allow me to change the station back by hitting the pre-set buttons until the car had run for at least a minute or two. (???)
Over the past couple of years, the radio has started randomly changing stations WHILE I’M DRIVING. This is truly annoying – it always seems to do it just as an important piece of information is being announced!
But then, over the last couple of weeks ANOTHER phenomenon started happening: the horn started blowing by itself! It happened when the car had been sitting parked in the direct 94-degree hot Florida summer sun. To make the horn shut up, I had to open the door and pound on the padded part of the steering wheel and turn it a few degrees. I finally connected the dots and realized that it only seemed to happen when the car was HOT inside. (Could it be that something is expanding with the heat and allowing the contacts to touch?)
Well, the final straw was reached a couple of days ago (and is the main reason why I’m posting this thread). The horn started blowing randomly AS I WAS DRIVING! This was annoying to say the least, but then it became downright dangerous as it almost sparked road rage from the drivers in front of me – the last thing I want to do is take a bullet from some crackhead who thinks I’m P.O’d. at him!!!
So, I pulled the horn fuse and now I’m driving around without a horn, praying that I don’t need it to alert a pet, a child or some idiot to get out of the way before they get run over! I suspect that all of these problems probably stem from the same root cause.
QUESTIONS: Does anybody out there have any information on these ghost-like problems? Is there something in the steering column that is worn out? If so, is it easily replaced as a do-it-yourself project? Or should you let a mechanic trained in this area do it since you’d be messing around the air bag? Are parts easily available? Expensive? Where would you find the parts; “dealer only?”
Surely I’m not the first Firebird/Camero V6 owner to experience this “Ghost in the Machine?!?”
Thanks in advance for your help!
Reefshark
I have a 1995 Firebird Convertible, 3.8 Ltr., that has the radio/CD controls on the steering wheel. I bought the car when it had 95,000 miles on it and it now has 180,000 miles on it. Over the years some strange problems have started popping up.
The radio controls on the steering wheel worked fine when I first bought the car in 2004. Gradually, they stopped working at all. I didn’t mind enough to pay to have it fixed as long as I could still adjust the radio with the manual controls in the dash.
But then, a few years ago the radio started increasing the volume by itself when I turned corners. It would get so loud it was painful. The frequency of the volume problem started to diminish only to be replaced by a new one: the radio started changing channels by itself!
Whenever I would get in and start the car, the radio would scan (without ME touching the controls) by itself and usually land on a station I can’t stand. What’s worse, it refused to allow me to change the station back by hitting the pre-set buttons until the car had run for at least a minute or two. (???)
Over the past couple of years, the radio has started randomly changing stations WHILE I’M DRIVING. This is truly annoying – it always seems to do it just as an important piece of information is being announced!
But then, over the last couple of weeks ANOTHER phenomenon started happening: the horn started blowing by itself! It happened when the car had been sitting parked in the direct 94-degree hot Florida summer sun. To make the horn shut up, I had to open the door and pound on the padded part of the steering wheel and turn it a few degrees. I finally connected the dots and realized that it only seemed to happen when the car was HOT inside. (Could it be that something is expanding with the heat and allowing the contacts to touch?)
Well, the final straw was reached a couple of days ago (and is the main reason why I’m posting this thread). The horn started blowing randomly AS I WAS DRIVING! This was annoying to say the least, but then it became downright dangerous as it almost sparked road rage from the drivers in front of me – the last thing I want to do is take a bullet from some crackhead who thinks I’m P.O’d. at him!!!
So, I pulled the horn fuse and now I’m driving around without a horn, praying that I don’t need it to alert a pet, a child or some idiot to get out of the way before they get run over! I suspect that all of these problems probably stem from the same root cause.
QUESTIONS: Does anybody out there have any information on these ghost-like problems? Is there something in the steering column that is worn out? If so, is it easily replaced as a do-it-yourself project? Or should you let a mechanic trained in this area do it since you’d be messing around the air bag? Are parts easily available? Expensive? Where would you find the parts; “dealer only?”
Surely I’m not the first Firebird/Camero V6 owner to experience this “Ghost in the Machine?!?”
Thanks in advance for your help!
Reefshark
Comment