Steering Wheel Change
 

Its been pending for a while this one, but my car the older style tiptronic sports steering wheel which was fitted on the late 1998 pre facelift cars and facelift cars upto about 2000. It has raised tiptronic buttons and looks a little less sleek than its later counterpart which also has a more modern looking chrome ring around the 4 audi rings in the middle.

Connections between the two are identical, so its a pretty easy exchange.

Heres the original factory fitted wheel:

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1273581456

So firstly we need to remove the airbag. For this you probably ought to disconnect the battery etc and use extreme caution when handling the airbag but I tend to just do it with ignition off to be honest, but dont come crying to me if your airbag goes off +++

There are two T30 Torx bolts on the rear of the steering wheel out of sight. You will need to turn the steering wheel off center to be able to get a socket into them. They will be tight, but will come out.

Once they are loose, the airbag is loose. It will have a connector into the center which needs disconnecting carefully.

Before the wheel can come off, you will need to disconnect the black connector shown a the top of the steering wheel from the slip ring behind it. This connector has 4 wires - ground, tip up, tip down and illumination. The connector below is for the airbag and horn.

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1273581456

The center bolt is a triple square of some size I believe, but I'm so vague because I always use a Torx T55 which is a perfect fit. Use a small extention to get you clear of the wheel itself.

This bolt will be dam tight. I wouldnt advise having the steering lock on as you run the risk of breaking it with the force needed to relax this bolt. Instead leave the steering loose and use the cars natural instinct to not want to turn the front wheels to wrench against.

I strongly recommend centralising the steering wheel prior to removing it to make it a heck of a lot easier to get the new one on straight !!

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1273581456

Here are the two wheels side by side - Old on left, new on right. Note that getting the right colour is important as the steering wheel is designed to match the upper dash colour, so could be beige, grey, black, brown (Rare) or a few others.

Its interesting to note the new wheel is about half the weight of the old one...

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1273581456

New wheel in place, ready for bolting back up:

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1273581456

and airbag back in, screwed up using the same Torx 30's behind

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1273581470

Then take it for a quick test drive, make sure that it is straight as being one notch out can be surprising annoying (experience speaking here!!) - Also test the horn works, tip buttons work and that the airbag light is off....

Once thats done, you can sit back and admire your more youthful looking car +++

Brilliant Ian, the new one is a lot better, I'm glad my car is a 01 and came with this wheel already on it. What I would say though is, try kiwi shoe polish on your RNS E, mine pretty much matches the climate panel now and even James's thought it looked okay. Praise indeed.

Its rare I need to revisit a post, but really, I have to.

I cant express just how much nicer this steering wheel feels. I'm really taken back by it. I did it for purely cosmetic reasons, but you can *feel* it is lighter and somehow makes the car feel more agile, and also its got a subtly different contours and this again makes it sit just that little bit nicer in the hands when driving.....

What a thoroughly worthwhile mod.... :love:

Gah!

I'm having a nightmare with my wheel now. Changed it some time ago for a wooden one, which I love, however it's been off centre for ages so finally got around to (trying) to sort it out today... The annoyance has finally bitten! Turns out one of the airbag bolts has sheared off. Also I can't get the main bolt undone again- It was really, really tight last time I did it but now won't come off!

Does anyone have any bright ideas for removing half a sheared bolt from inside the airbag housing? Would far rather remove the half and then use one of the identical bolts from my old wheel rather than buying another airbag unit! The bolt, I think, only sheared off through a bit of overtightening and also being undone at an odd angle.

Photo would really help.... Is the airbag now off, but a bolt stuck inside the bracket??

The center nut is just about brute force. Get a good extension and a breaker bar and hang on it till it goes....

Thanks Ian, I'll try to get it apart again tomorrow. Basically half the bolt is left in the airbag housing. Had a couple of tips from Pistonheads so will probably take it out of the car, leave the capacitors to discharge for a while and carefully drill it out. The centre bolt is annoying, had devils own delight getting it off last time, including smacking my chin on the car door! Bought another extension today but it's not terribly long and doesn't fit with the shape of the wheel. I actually sheared the Torx bit tightening it up last time. Obviously a bit too tight! This will sound like a very amateur question, but is it clockwise or anti to undo the main bolt? Don't want to break myself trying, mistakenly, to do it up tighter!!!

Just to note on the airbag front, usual best practice for disconnecting airbags is to disconnect the battery, leave it for half an hour for any capacitors to discharge, then remove. Also advised when remaking the connections to stand outside the car and turn the ignition on the first time, in case it's shorted and fires as soon as it sees power!

When storing airbags they 'should' be placed in a secure locked cabinet with the airbag facing up - don't ever put it face down.

Advantage of doing this is you're less likely to get a fault code recorded if you disconnect the battery, and much less likely to get killed by it :ROFL:

Airbags used to be part of my day job (vehicle safety and accident investigation)

Adrian