My Car Won't Stop HONKING

[Noamit 3]

My E39 530i won't stop honking.

From the moment I turn the key, which is as soon as it can, the car will honk continuously.

It initially started as intermittent honking. Once it starts, it wouldn't stop until I press the honk.

I took off the airbag to see if I can see anything strange underneath, but my untrained eyes didn't catch anything.

Once I put it back, the issue got worse and now it's basically always honking, making the car undrivable.

I was told to remove the immobiliser fuse and see if that continues. I'll do that, but what else can I do while I'm at it to diagnose this issue?

 

Thanks

[BM WORLD 1295]

maybe broken twisted wires in the slip ring

or bent horn plate ? has airbag gone off ever?  original sw? 

[Driftit 2184]

My E46 did this.  One of the screws had backed out and was loose.  It kept making contact and honking the horn.
I had to take the wheel apart to find it.

[Noamit 3]

To my knowledge the airbag has never gone off.

The steering wheel does have some upholstery imperfections and honestly it looks like someone didn't do a great job rewrapping it.

No clue why it had to come off in the first place.

[Driftit 2184]

Yeah you can get those wraps off Aliexpress for about $15.  But you don't need to take the wheel apart to do so.  Shouldn't have an effect.

[Noamit 3]

So after much neglect I came back to this car to do a little more investigation and... didn't get far,

The only new discovery is that the horn DOES honk even if the airbag and horn is removed from the steering wheel.

What could that mean? Some grounding issue?

[Eagle 1759]

For starters the 3rd photo shows a missing torx screw on the LHS, don't know where that is gone, are you sure there is nothing stuck on the in between the horn plate? Failing id re-seat all the connections and the ground, then there should be a connector under the lower steering wheel shroud the goes to the clock spring, if you disconnect that and it stops then its clock spring, wheel or wiring issue in the steering wheel area.

[Driftit 2184]

1 hour ago, Noamit said:

So after much neglect I came back to this car to do a little more investigation and... didn't get far,

The only new discovery is that the horn DOES honk even if the airbag and horn is removed from the steering wheel.

What could that mean? Some grounding issue?

Have you tried replacing the horn relay?
If it is going off all the time at random and that is not being caused by the horn button/steering wheel part of the circuit then it could be a faulty relay.  You can test the relay or see if there is similar one you can swap it with to test.