Our truck's electrical system must have gone haywire. Friday hubby called me from work. He was on break and notice the blinkers were on. Then he noticed the horn was honking. He rushed over to the truck to find that the doors were locking and unlocking by themselves, ALL the warning signals were flashing on and off and the ear-splitting horn wouldn't shut the f up. He was kind of freaked out, and going deaf from the horn. By now I was freaked too. He disconnected the battery and all the noise shut off. Of course he had to leave the truck unlocked, because now the key fob had no effect.
He was able to drive home without the horn going off again. He disconnected the battery and left it as is for the rest of the night. Saturday morning I called Service. I called Ford Service everywhere and NOTHING was open until Monday.
Hubby watched YouTube videos, consulted the manual, and decided to pull the fuse for the horn, because who wants a horn loud enough to wake the dead honking continuously. We decided to stop at Auto Zone so they could diagnose it. Battery was ok. No codes were picked up by the handheld tester they use. The Alternator seemed to be questionable.
We have a service plan with excellent coverage, but service must be performed at a Ford Dealership. I was able to make an early appointment for Wednesday.
In the meantime, hubby figured out that it was fine to drive, but when parked, he had to disconnect the battery in order to shut off the lights. If we were only going to be walking around for a few minutes, we figured it was fine. For any extended time the battery would need to be disconnected and the truck would be unlocked. That was ok for work (parking is fenced in) or here at the apartment (nothing so far has happened).
We did drive around over the weekend and checked out some parks. They will be pretty once they start the green up.
We got as far as Kaukauna before the rain and sleet started. What an interesting town. They have preserved many old buildings and factories and converted them. We want to go back when the library is open. It used to be a paper mill. Here is a picture.
The Ahlstrom-Munksjo Thilmany paper mill is down river, in this picture.
The river is wide and swift in Kaukauna. I looked it up. There is a 50 foot drop as the water races toward Green Bay. So the water runs north out of Lake Winnebago and into the Fox River. For some reason I thought it flowed the other way. Kaukauna generates electricity from the river.
On the way home I started to smell something. It smelled like dog poo. Just then hubby asked, what's that smell? Just then I noticed he had opened his window slightly. I also noticed we were downwind of the paper mill.
It's the Paper Mill!!!! Your window is open. He promptly closed it. After we were down the road more, hubby opened his window again to let in some fresh air. Honestly, it was like sticking your nose into a bag of dog sh*t.
I always heard people say, don't live downwind of a paper mill. Sometimes the wind shifts and there's nothing you can do.
I looked up the paper mill's page, out of curiosity. Headquarters are in Finland, the mill has Swedish owners. They have quite an operation. The smell is explained, and they try to vent it out away from town, but sometimes the wind shifts.
We got home just as it started to snow furiously.
I will update Wednesday, after we find out what's wrong with the truck.