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How to Install Hella Horns 2013-15 Subaru XV Crosstrek

Created on: 2018-02-07

New Horn from 1AAuto.com. How to remove and replace a shorted, muffled, or faulty horn on 13, 14, 15 Subaru XV Crosstrek.

  1. step 1 :Removing the Bumper Cover
    • Place painter's tape along the edge of the fender
    • Place painter's tape along the edge of the headlight
    • Repeat for the other side
    • Pry up and remove the ten push clips from atop the bumper
    • Lift the air guide up and out
    • Pry out the push clip on the bumper in the wheel well on both sides
    • Pry out the push clip on the splash shield
    • Pry the bumper out from the edge and unclip along the bumper
    • Pull the bumper out and disconnect the fog light connector
    • Remove the bumper
  2. step 2 :Removing the Horns
    • Remove the low torn horn with a 12mm socket and ratchet
    • Disconnect the wiring harness
    • Remove the 10mm bolts from the high tone horn bracket
    • Disconnect the wiring harness
  3. step 3 :Wiring the Horns
    • Crimp spade terminal on wire and place heat shrink around it
    • Strip the end of the wiring
    • Crimp a spade terminal to the wire and secure it with a heat shrink and heat gun
    • Connect the terminal to the wiring harness
    • Connect the terminal to the horn
  4. step 4 :Installing the Horns
    • Insert the new low tone horn into place
    • Tighten the 12mm bolt
    • Insert the ground
    • Tighten the bolt to the horn
    • Connect the terminal
    • Repeat for the high tone horn
  5. step 5 :Installing the Bumper Cover
    • Connect the fog light connector
    • Line the bumper into place
    • Push the bumper in to its clips
    • Press the clip on the bumper in the wheel well on both sides
    • Press the clips in to the splash shield
    • Insert the air guide into place
    • Press the clips in atop the bumper
    • Remove the painter's tape

Tools needed

  • 12mm Socket

    Socket Extensions

    Flat Blade Screwdriver

    Painter's Tape

    10mm Socket

    Ratchet

    Trim Tool Set

Hi, I’m Mike from 1A Auto. We’ve been selling auto parts for over 30 years!

Release our hood. Pull the handle inside, underneath the safety right here. Lift it up. So it has two positions. The normal position and then a service position. Check the edge of the fender. Put some masking tape along it between the fender and the bumper. Tape the edge of the bumper and put some masking tape on the edge of the headlight. Just doing this so when I take the bumper off it's less likely to scratch it. Just repeat that for the other side. There's ten push clips on the top of the bumper that you want to remove: here and here. Use a small flat bladed screwdriver, pop it up and take it out. Just repeat that for all the clips. If the center comes out no big deal, they'll go back in.

So the top of the bumper is loose. This actually little air guide behind it is loose, and you could pop this out. That's how to remove that air guide. You don't have to raise the vehicle to get the bumper off, but we're going to do it because it's easier to show you what's going on. So there's a push clip on the side of the bumper. I'm not sure if this one is original. Yours may have a center part that you need to push in and unlock it. This one is a barbed clip. I'm going to use a trim clip tool to pry it out. Repeat that for the other side. If the clip breaks, we'll just have to replace it. Just push it through.

Remove this push clip here. All right. That's part of our broken clip. There's one here and then two more over here. We'll follow this across, and there are two clips here. Ours were attached up there and they had broken off, just from probably from parking lot stoppers. You need to unclip these if they weren't broken. I'm just going to leave them alone. And move on to the other ones on the other side. And this one on the outside here. This will sound like you're breaking the bumper, but you're really popping it off of the bracket here. So you're going to grab it just below where it splits and just pull it straight out. That one came out pretty easy. It'll unclip from all the way around just like that.

There's a bunch of clips where it clips in all under the headlight. And I'm just going to repeat that for the other side. And just hold onto the bumper so it doesn't fall. Just go down around just like that. The bumper is totally loose and you take it straight off. Oh, I left the fog lights attached. To unplug the fog lights, there's a connector block right here. Push it in and pull it out, and do the same for the other side. And we put the bumper aside.

Remove the low tone horn using a 12 millimeter socket ratchet extension. Push in the lock and unplug it, there we go. The high tone horn is underneath the passenger side headlamp behind the bumper. Use a 10 millimeter socket ratchet extension to remove the bracket. Just push in the lock there, unplug it.

Our original horns, one was mounted in the front, one was mounted down below the passenger side headlamp. Our new horns, we want to show these off, so we're going to mount one here and the other one here. You're going to have to extend some of the wiring harnesses and a couple of the grounds from the original power wire for the horn that's over here. I'm just going to make some harnesses, you'll have to do the same. But this is basically, these are universal parts. They can be installed on any vehicle.

So took a spade connector, put some heat shrink around it—I'm going to plug it into the power lead for over here. I just want to see how long it needs to be. This is just some extra wire I had, so it's going to run up, and there's some space behind the foam here, and right about here. So I'll cut it there and add a connector that will fit on the horn. Strip the wire, put heat shrink on the wire first, slide it all the way, place the connector on, and crimp that down. Slide the larger heat shrink over it—make sure I cover those a bit and protect them. Take your heat gun. Didn't shrink down fully over the wire because it was a little bigger.

Going to take that smaller piece I had and slide it up and over like that. Just seal it up nice from the weather. There's our little power harness. So you just make some harnesses like that, whatever length you need, to make the horns work. This is a 10 millimeter bolt. I'm just going to remove it. It's pretty rusty. Spray some rust penetrant in there. These have two terminals on them. They're like a speaker: it doesn't really matter which one is positive, which one is negative, but you do want to, once you pick one or the other, do the same for the other horn. So I'm going to make this one positive. Slide that on there just like that and put this bolt through the bracket into the opening there. Get it started by hand. That is holding the AC condenser in, so just be careful with it.

Get our horn lined up here and tighten it down. Line it up the way you want it, tighten it, and don’t go too much. Perfect right there. Now make a little ground cable, and I'm going to ground it, since this is going into a rubber grommet. I'm not sure if that's a good ground. I see this bolt up here goes right to metal. I'm going to make a little tiny wire that'll go right to this as the ground. I'm going to remove this bolt, it's a 12 millimeter. A little rusty. I'm not using a ring terminal, I'm using one that's open, so I don't need to fully remove the bolts. Get it on there in that direction and I'll tighten it back down. Should be a nice body ground. Take this, plug it into the back of the horn just like that.

So just repeat these steps for the other horn. With this horn, the power cable is kind of looped down. I'm going to clip it, give me some more room so I don't have to make an extension. Clip the little. There’s a little cable tie down here. Just like that. And now we can bring it over here and use it. I'm going to plug it in here. Set this aside, put it down here very carefully for now. Spray a little rust penetrant in here. Get our horn mounted and lined up. Looks even. Tighten that up, all right. Get the ground installed. Run this down to the horn. Keep the wire from flopping around.

To reinstall the bumper, get it up close here. Just hang onto the middle to plug in the fog lights. Just push them in. They'll lock when they are in place. The same for both sides. Hold the bumper up. That's why you put masking tape over the fenders, and push it in. Yeah, that's going in. Get this tape out of the way. Line it up. I'll replace this clip here. Start peeling off this tape as I go along. Do the same on the other side. Replace this clip. Remove the tape. Put all the push clips back in the same place underneath. Replace these if yours aren't broken. Then reinstall this air guide. It goes over the hood latch. Pull it out on the bumper a little bit. There we go. Get these little clips lined up first. Put this clip in. This one here. Bumper is reinstalled. Put the hood down.

Thanks for watching. Visit us at 1AAuto.com for quality auto parts, fast and free shipping, and the best customer service in the industry.


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