If you’ve ever driven through Manhattan, you may be wondering if cars can ever run out of “honk.” It sounds like the kind of question a 5-year-old would ask on a long road trip, but you'd be surprised at the number of adults who ponder that very question. A car horn uses an electromagnetic process that’s a lot more technical than you might imagine. When you press your steering wheel, you’re not actually creating the sound yourself. Inside your horn is a coil that creates a magnet that pulls a metal plunger attached to a diaphragm. When the plunger gets too far back, it trips a switch, allowing the coil to release the plunger. This occurs very rapidly, resulting in the diaphragm moving back and forth. The sound from this rapidly vibrating diaphragm is amplified by the horn's body and projected outwards. So can your car run out of honk? Technically yes, but not the way your car runs out of gas. The horn can stop working if you use it excessively, but it’s due to heat damage, not depletion. That, however, isn’t something you would ever see in normal driving…….not even in Manhattan. Certified mechanic and auto expert Chris Pyle says that in his three decades of working on cars, he’s replaced only about 12 car horns total, and most of those failures weren’t from overuse. You would have to lean on your horn for 15 minutes straight for it to reach the heat that would cause it to blow a fuse. So, if you’re ever wondering why that car horn at the accident scene eventually stopped blaring, it literally gave up from exhaustion.
