Chrysler Repair: 00 Neon: no horn/air bag. Clockspring?, national highway safety administration, national highway safety

Question
I saw a question from May about replacing the clock spring.  I have the same symptoms, no horn, airbag light on.  It just started a few days ago.  I'm not an automotive guru but was hoping to save a little money.  I don't have cruise control so I can get the part for around $70.  Of course if it's overly complicated, I could just go to a dealer.  I understand there's no warranty to your answer :)

Answer
Hi Mark,
Because the airbag is a crash safety device you might want to check into the possibility that this clockspring replacement might be covered by a Federal-required warranty or that there's a required recall because of a demonstrated generic problem with it. You could try the Chrysler Corp website or the Federal National Highway Safety Administration which would explain the warranty time/mileage and also has lists of recalls.
If that approach doesn't net you a free replacement, then I have about 8 pages from the '97 shop manual I could xerox and postal mail to you that includes how to remove the steering wheel and replace the clockspring (this would cost me about $1.25 to do which you can reimburse me with three 42 cent stamps after you get them). You might want to verify that the clockspring is gone by locating a triple connector behing the instrument panel (top center of panel) that has three multiwire connectors colored brown, black and blue. The brown plug has a red/black wire at pin 5. When you try the horn button you should see the voltage on that wire drop from 12v to 0v. If it does, then the clockspring wire for the horn is still ok and  possibly the horn fuse is bad if you don't see 12v on the wire (#23 in the box under the hood) or the horn relay is bad. If that is true, then you might also question whether it is the clockspring that is causing the airbag light. But if the horn is not connected as described then that would corroborate the clockspring as the problem.
Roland
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