Hello everybody, my name is Keith and I joined this forum in an effort to see if y'all might have an answer to a question.

I have a 2002 Nissan Xterra. When I am at highway speeds in cold weather I get a honking sound from what sounds like the front passanger side of the vehicle. It sounds just like I am honking the horn, except it is not the horn, the horn is a slightly different pitch. It only happens when it is cold outside and at highway speeds... say 55 mph or more.

If any of you have ever heard of this or know what it might be I would greatly appreciate it if you would give me some input. It is driving me nuts.

Feel free to email me at keithtaylorphotography@gmail.com and just put something like "Honking Xterra" in subject line.

Thanks you everybody for taking the time to read this.

Keith

:auslachen2-big: :auslachen2-big:

You are in luck!!! I have seen this same exact situation on many occasions. These sound exactly like the symptoms of a problem known most commonly as driving with Maggie Simpson.

Here is what you do. Look at the seat you are in. Are you in the passenger seat? If so, see if there is a little girl in the driver's side. I just pulled up a diagram and she looks like this

http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h27/soccerbrace/magdrive.jpg

Sorry I am of no help bro. I have never heard of this. I just had to have fun with your situation. Welcome to the club!-James

Thank you for the warm welcome James.... and for the insight into my problem. What a sense of humor you have.

For everybody else.... to be more clear, the sound seems to come from the very front passenger side of the vehicle. I assume the cooler temp makes the parts of something contract... letting air through it, turning it into a horn of sorts. Problem is that you can't get out and listen up close to see where it is coming from when you are at highway speeds.

Wow! This sounds like a job for Cyclemut here. This one goes way over my head.

You should shoot a video of your X when you are driving so we can hear this xterra anomaly.

Welcome to Club X and sorry I can't be any help other than sarcasm.

Sorry if that did seem like a harsh introduction, but I had to see the humor in it. I think you can too.

As far as that goes. has your X been in an accident? Mine has from the owner before me. Now what happend up front is that the light broke in the back. There are a few places where the light mounts to the front clip. There is a rubber seal around the headlight where it mates with the fender. If this seal is broke, or missing or there is a gap there, that might be where you are getting your sound.

Additionally, There is a "shield" as your inner fender liner. This may have a hole in it creating the horn sound.

I apologize if you took offense to my first post Keith.-James

This is truly weird. Oddly enough I remember when I was a little kid, riding with my dad, he posed a question to me. His car had a rear spoiler above the window and during cold weather, the wind moving through the spoiler would actually create a loud whistle. Just something to keep my mind occupied I'm sure but he asked if I knew why it made that sound only in cold weather.

I still to this day have theories but no answers. Maybe we need to call Mythbusters.:mocking:

Maybe the air is more dense. Or maybe there's something rubber or plastic oscillating, and it only makes noise in a specific temperature range where it reaches the right frequency coefficient allowing to hit that resonant frequency and make your horn pitch? I dunno, I'm talking from my butt. In all seriousness though, air density and the dynamic flexibility coefficient of something are the only factors I can think of that would be effected by the cold. What this means is, whatever is making the noise, has to have the PERFECT conditions. That also means that it is almost NOT doing it, which means you're very close to fixing it and probably don't have to do much. Look for anything rubber or plastic that might be getting blasted with air. Could be metal, but not as likely. Little plastic shields around the engine bay, rubber flaps underneath around the air dam, etc. Soccerbrace could very well be on the right track with his theories. It's stuff like that I'd look for. Just jamb sticks into everything, try to disturb the current position of loose/flexible items on the front of the rig.

Speaking of horns, mine sounds dumb. It's an embarrassment. Sounds like it was made by Fisher Price. Does anyone else's sound like that? Is it because it was flooded?

The X's stock horn isn't fear-invoking by any means but I imagine the flood damage really took a toll on it.

Look into upgrading to one of these:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=XvRvW1QgZ5E

I did not take offense to it at all and really found it funny. I was in some what of a rush when I replied earlier so I may have sounded short.

Thank all of you for you input... I do appreciate you taking the time to reply and I will check things out better. I was just wondering if this was something that is a regular model with that year model.

It has never been wrecked to my knowledge.

Thank you again y'all... I will post again if I figure out what is doing it.

Keith

so, ill go out on a limb and suggest checking the rubber seal between the wind deflector and the roof also
its difficult to tell where an outside noise is coming from(as in its not always coming from where it sounds like it is)

The X's stock horn isn't fear-invoking by any means but I imagine the flood damage really took a toll on it.

Look into upgrading to one of these:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=XvRvW1QgZ5E
I've actually got onboard air on my stepside with big chrome air horn I yanked off a freightliner under the hood. :) Don't have room for the 24" horn under the hood of the X though, and I don't think the little compressor for my shocks could feed it.