Max Ima

I have 2 questions. They are as follows:
1. I need to replace the "horn" that produces the sound when I lock my car with the keyless remote. Is this horn separate from the main horn connected to the steering wheel?
2. Prior to having my engine mounts replaced, my car started "smoothly", was "quiet", and had no issues.
After the engine mount replacement with After Market, Non-Electronic Mounts, on initial "starts", the idle is "rough", the steering wheel vibrates, and it feels as if I am starting a truck. Once the car warms up, the symptom goes away.
The mechanic who did the repair stated that he put in "non-electronic" after-market engine mounts which could be the issue. I have taken the car to 2 other mechanics who tell me everything is OK regarding the engine mount install.
But I know my car. It starts like a truck and idles rough since the engine mount replacement. What is going on?? Please HELP!

george__

iTrader: (1)

The automatic cars had these fancy automatic motor mounts which were connected to car via cables.. When you put manual motor mounts into the car the fancy automatic motor mount function disappeared which is why you have rough idle.



For your horn download the EL.PDF file and do the diagnostics for horn. The horn is in front of the engine, no need to take apart your dashboard or anything in car.

http://boredmder.com/FSMs/Nissan/Maxima/2000.5/

DennisMik

iTrader: (2)

George means well, but his information has a tendency to not help or even be relevant.

1 - The car has 2 horns, one behind the grill under where the hood latches and another in the engine compartment on the passenger side. When you blow the horn via the steering wheel, both horns blow. But the horn in the engine compartment is the "security" horn used by the alarm, so you want to check this one.

Each horn has a separate fuse. First see if both horns work when you press on the steering wheel. If the one in the engine compartment, does not work, check the fuse. It is located in the fuse block next to the battery, in the front corner labeled ANTI THEFT. If the fuse is blown, you probably have a bad horn.

HOWEVER... if the horn blows from the steering wheel and not when you lock the car with the remote, it may be a simple case of you have the beep turned off. You turn the beep on or off by using the remote. You do this by pressing both the lock and unlock buttons at the same time and hold them for at least 2 seconds. If you have the Nissan remote, this info is molded into the backside of the plastic.

2 - Cars with automatic transmissions do have what gets called electric engine mounts. They are actually oil filled and by changing the amount of oil in the mount, this will change the stiffness of the mount. It is set up to be softer at engine idle (below 1,000 rpm) than at driving speeds.

When changing to solid rubber engine mounts, you could end up feeling more vibrations when idling at a stop light. It mostly depends on how smooth the engine idles. There are many people here on Maxima.org that have put in solid rubber mounts and don't have a vibration problem. One thing to try is when idling, put the transmission in neutral and see if the idle feels any smoother.

But the problem could also be improper installation. It happened to me for one. I had my engine mounts replaced and when I started the car and let it idle, it felt like a vibrating bed in a short time motel. Of course I took it back and the place did fix it, but they never really told me what was wrong. My personal opinion is that the replacement engine mounts probably were not made to the exact dimensions of the originals.

pastaben

DennisMik,
I know this is an old post, but it is relevant to what I'm looking for and in the past, you have been very helpful where I was not able to find the info easily.

I'd like to replace the standard horns, and I understand that one is the security and one is the regular horn. I have the EL.pdf portion, and the diagram tells me how things are connected, but I don't understand electronics well enough to know the risk of replacing components.

I purchased a basic Hella 2 horn set up to get more a trumpet sound than the tweet tweet of the standard horns. Can I just straight replace each horn with the new Hella horns?

the Security horn currently has two wires connected to the horn. Can I just straight replace the horn there?
the regular horn behind the grill has only a positive to the horn, and I assume the mount itself is the ground, which means when I put a new horn behind the grill, I can still plug the + in, and then make my own ground lead, as the Hella shell is plastic (the bracket is metal, so I haven't tested to see if that functions as the ground, too.

Will replacing the security horn create any problems with the computer that you know of?

Thanks in advance.

J P D

I used to own a 2000 SE - the least of my problems was the horn. Keep checking the lower radiator support, and the slides on the rear calipers.

DennisMik

iTrader: (2)

You don't have to worry about any computer problems from changing the horns because the horns are not controlled by any computer. I had Hella on my 94 Max and transferred them to my 2000. I'm still using those horns today on my Lexus, the 3rd car for them.

The Hella horns require 2 wires to it, 12 volts and ground. The horns I bought are all metal and they need an external ground wire, the internal parts of the corn are not connected to the case of the horn. I did what you are saying - I made a wire with the plug connector on one end and a fork connector on the other. I put the fork end under the bolt that holds the horn bracket to the hood latch support and it worked fine. Your horns with the plastic case would need the ground wire.

I don't know about the horns you bought, but mine had a bright bright red grill on them and the red was very obvious behind the grill. I took the horn off, removed the grill and painted it flat black.