I haven't seen it do this yet (wifes car).....

The symptoms she is describing is she is driving along and the instrument cluster goes wild. ALL indicator lights randomly flashing and the spedo and tach jumping. It just started today on her way home from work.

AND, last summer it had a problem with the horn. the thing would just go off by itself and the only way to shut it off was disconect it or the battery.

I'm now thinking the horn issue was the 1st sign of this new problem--and am leaning towards a short or 10 in the main harness (Initially I thought this new thing may be an ECM issue, but I don't think the horn is activated thru the ECM).

any other ideas (besides set fire to the POS, that was my very 1st impulse ) ?

US military beam weapons.. or Aliens..

when i worked for SDI i was delivering medication to convolesnt homes late at night and couldn't find athe address of one. i angry punched my horn and it stuck on. couldnt turn it off!
i drove around doing the rest of my delivers like that "4 more hours."
around the city, no one could figure anything out. people where getting out of my way, stoping in intersections thinking i was trying to go. and other stuff.
finaly it went off like 6 hours later and from then on my tach would randomly not work right and, somtimes my horn would just go off on its own. my neghbors would wake me up and say, your horn is going off again!
lol.

Whack it real hard on the side of the cluster

quote Originally posted by 84fierotrevor: i angry punched my horn and it stuck on. couldnt turn it off!

Hahaha, that's very similar to what happened to me. One day something pissed me off while driving my 1994 S-10 Pickup. I drilled the center of the steering wheel with my fist a few times and carried on without incidient. Later on I'm suddenly jolted from my sleep at 3:15am by the sound of a blaring horn. I lay there for what seemed like 15 minutes thinking "who's the friggin idiot blaring their horn". So I get up ,stumble out of the bedroom, and go to the front window to look outside......Oh my God it's MY truck!!!

I went back to the bedroom and threw on some sweatpants & t-shirt and headed out the door. Then I fumbled around with the horn cover but couldn't get the horn to quit as the neighbors surely grew more angry with each passing minute. Finally I frantically ripped the cover off and pulled the wire from the horn terminal. The sudden silence was deafening.

Apparently when I sucker punched the horn cover, a thin metal plate (helps keep the vinyls shape) on the inside surface of the cover was "dimpled" by my knuckles. That night as the temperature dropped to a certain point the metal destorted and grounded itself. In turn setting off the horn. Had I not woken up the damn thing would have continued screaming through out the wee hours of the morning. Only to cease when either the battery was drained or the temp rose enough to break the metal to metal contact.

BTW I have no idea what could be wrong with the Saturn. Electrical gremlins are a pain in the rear to figure out. good luck.

my dad had a problem with his 93 saturn, the power seat belts would move back and forth on there own at random times. after a few hours of playing with it we took it to the dealership apparently it was some box called the "quad drive controler modual" apparently it had fried a few resistors due to condensation from pop cups my dad placed on the center councle just above the module. nothing in our repair manual mentioned thes moudlue so good luck with your problem.

I emailed you a TSB in PDF format about horn issues and more due to a specific chafing problem.. check it out and see if it's related.

Oh, and your instrument panel harness ground is in the engine bay on the drivers side in front of the shock tower. It's two wires breaking out of the wrapped harness going down to the inner fenderwell, make sure that is clean and tight.

[This message has been edited by Scott-Wa (edited 10-11-2006).]

Horns going off by themselves is not uncommon on any make of car, and is usually an easy fix.

As far as your dash lights and gauge issues, it is most likely a PCM problem. The pcm's are easy to replace, and you can get one from the bone yard very cheap. You will have to have the dealer program the pcm to your car and set all the options such as remotes, abs, cruise, etc. You can swap the pcm directly and your car will run, but I do strongly recommend having it programmed.

As far as wiring issues, I have been a saturn tech for 3 years now, and have never seen severe wiring damage. That said, varmits love to eat the engine coolant temp sensor wires, wich run into the main harness. This would be on top of the trans were the trans and engine mate up, and next to the battery and under the intake tubeing. By the way, the engine coolant temp sensor wiring is easy to identify as it is 2 wires yellow and black. On a side note, if the connector is corroded, replace both the connector and sensor. The parts are readily available, and the condition can cause hard starts, and rich running conditions. Hope some of this info helps. good luck.

quote Originally posted by wetpoop: Horns going off by themselves is not uncommon on any make of car, and is usually an easy fix. .

The 1999 Malibu I have had a horn problem. GM had to rewire the entire circuit from the steering wheel down to the horns. They also had to install new horns....

That car took 3 weeks for the dealer to repair... LOL

S. Williams

------------------
1988 Fiero Formula T-tops
CJB 143 of 1252 "factory T-top cars"

quote Originally posted by Scott-Wa: I emailed you a TSB in PDF format about horn issues and more due to a specific chafing problem.. check it out and see if it's related. Oh, and your instrument panel harness ground is in the engine bay on the drivers side in front of the shock tower. It's two wires breaking out of the wrapped harness going down to the inner fenderwell, make sure that is clean and tight.

Im gonna second this sugestion. First thing I thought of when I read your description of the dash malfunction was "ground". A bad ground will make a dash and gauges do all kinds of goofy stuff.

[This message has been edited by Taijiguy (edited 10-12-2006).]