Cheap horn upgrade

[Oldrat]

I bought a BMW car horn from Ebay for £15.

I’ve had it sat in the shelf for ages but finally I became fed up with the wimpy OEM horn and set about fitting it.

BMW R1200 GSA 2017

Horn


I was surprised at how simple it was to change the horns over.

The replacement is plug and play using exactly the same connector.

The screw fixing is the same too.

Fitting:
I removed two screws from the off side panels.
This one on the small coolant access panel. You’ll see that I’ve fitted a Ciggy socket, wired directly to the battery to use my compressor which trips the canbus if used on the OEM sockets elsewhere.




And this one at the front.


You can now gentle tug the painted panel away to reveal the single nut holding the wimpy horn. Here is the black painted bracket it was mounted on





Press the tab on the connector and pull to release, pop the new connector in… test, then bolt it on.

Refit the panel taking care to line up the lugs across the top, and refit the bolts (longest one goes at the front)

All done, easy peasy and less than 15 mins, including pondering time.

Boy is it loud, at least three times more than the wimpy OEM bit of kit.

 

[Robbi]

But is it much louder. ??

 

[Oldrat]

But is it much louder. ??

Three times louder.

 

[siwhite]

Good upgrade - I'll do the same having read this!

 

[casbar]

Have been using the 5 series low tone horn on my RTs for years. Good upgrade on standard, but I did find some non BMW supplied horns although worked first time, became intermittent. So all the ones I fitted I bought over the counter at BMW parts.

 

[Bigcats]

Direct link https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/252175533054?_skw=7159421&epid=1609380037&itmmeta=01JWZKRKYX650874J1TY0SSYH8&itmprp=enc:AQAKAAAA4FkggFvd1GGDu0w3yXCmi1eSWQl1FSUW/TXMfcoIS0xUPwFt6LVLmrNUDTHUeCqK65b/GZCW+2poP35Ns3U0VDoW7vgyEm1mWdBEUspWeDkW/Im7c+yodeAK4DnX2ZbPuGUFmuufJPyN5rhAlZFOjJaiIZ3C6m0swuI2KYWx8XzVdTDQn8PLrkqhJJ0xWZpGudtUt48xbchOmo+MAVbRddYk4qbmgBqsxb1ADwMuLeSHhIgqLzpGAxdp+W7nueLVJNeiAO5HRJBkd/QSlVjVXQge4LmfjWPnhuEl6Uvb+m91|tkp:BFBM1r_i8-dl

If you are tighter than a nuns chuff you can get second hand

7159421 for sale | eBay

Find great deals on eBay for 7159421. Shop with confidence.

www.ebay.co.uk

 

[tjmouse]

I’m game for giving that a try. Thanks for the write up

 

[siwhite]

My new horn arrived today (amazingly quickly, having bought it yesterday on eBay…) and it was a five minute job to fit to my F850GS. Vastly improved noise - hard to say if it’s louder but it’s definitely deeper and more noticible. Less of a peep and more of a toot, if you get the meaning! Very decent and inexpensive upgrade - plug and play, and only one bolt involved!

 

[RobA]

Just as a follow up to the above. I too became a bit frustrated with the tiny horn on my F800R. I bought a secondhand pair taken from a K1200 from a breakers yard. One was a high version and one was low version. I paid £15 posted to my home for the pair. Both worked fine. Chose the low sound one and fitted in short time. Same fitting too. RobA.

 

[tjmouse]

Mine arrived today. Unfortunately not a plug and play swap on a 2014 r1200gs. The bolt is smaller than the 13mm on the gs (not a big issue but need to find a swap) but also the horn “arm” on the bike is too short so the plastic amplifier impacts the shroud on the bike so some fettling will be required.

 

[Oldrat]

Mine arrived today. Unfortunately not a plug and play swap on a 2014 r1200gs. The bolt is smaller than the 13mm on the gs (not a big issue but need to find a swap) but also the horn “arm” on the bike is too short so the plastic amplifier impacts the shroud on the bike so some fettling will be required.

I did put in the first post that it was a 2017 GSA, not sure if that makes a difference? I’m sure you could easily make it work.

Mine was close too, it was ok but I bent the arm just a smidgeon to give a little more clearance, because I didn’t want to chance any rattling.

 

[tjmouse]

I did put in the first post that it was a 2017 GSA, not sure if that makes a difference? I’m sure you could easily make it work.

Mine was close too, it was ok but I bent the arm just a smidgeon to give a little more clearance, because I didn’t want to chance any rattling.

Yeah I took the £8 gamble on eBay as I figured the fittings would match. I think I’ve got an Innovv bracket that I can use as an adaptor to drop the horn 1cm and then it’ll be fine. I’m surprised the mounting bolt is different though.

 

[adventuredon]

It won't fit a 1200R 2015 in 15 minutes either if anyone else has a 1200R and wants this...You'd have to spend a lot of time just to get to the old horn. FYI Post only

 

[SBD]

I fitted a BM car horn to my GS, it was great, but it didn’t last. It failed and I refitted the OE horn. Don’t know why.

 

[tjmouse]

I fitted a BM car horn to my GS, it was great, but it didn’t last. It failed and I refitted the OE horn. Don’t know why.

I notice the one I got doesn’t look as weather protected as my bikes horn. There’s a bump on the back of it with silicone on it and the same on the bike version with a plastic cap over it

 

[Mr Bean]

My new horn arrived today (amazingly quickly, having bought it yesterday on eBay…) and it was a five minute job to fit to my F850GS. Vastly improved noise - hard to say if it’s louder but it’s definitely deeper and more noticible.

A guy on YouTube did a side by side comparison with a DB meter at various distances with the low tone car horn. The bike horn was slightly louder but tinny, even though the it sounded the other way around.

I fitted a car one to mine around 4 years ago and it does seem more noticeable

 

[Arsey]

Similar idea . Fitted these on a few bikes . Straight swap takes 5 minutes

 

[Macca2321]

37 Quid to post to Finland lol. I'll stick tith the peep peep instead of the toot toot for now

 

[tjmouse]

Fitted mine with some bending of the bracket. Quick test and it worked well. First ride out and had someone pull out in front of my justifying a longer blast of the horn but instead it was on-off-on-off-on toot toot toot style. Very odd. tested in again on a quiet stretch of road and nothing no sound at all. Stopped for a break, restarted the bike and horn test had it working again.

My guess is the power draw is different and it confuses the ECU so stops working. Either way I swapped the old one back on when I get home.

 

[Oldrat]

Fitted mine with some bending of the bracket. Quick test and it worked well. First ride out and had someone pull out in front of my justifying a longer blast of the horn but instead it was on-off-on-off-on toot toot toot style. Very odd. tested in again on a quiet stretch of road and nothing no sound at all. Stopped for a break, restarted the bike and horn test had it working again.

My guess is the power draw is different and it confuses the ECU so stops working. Either way I swapped the old one back on when I get home.

Really odd, mine works just fine.