[bmikey]

This is my first post, thanks for welcoming me to the community! I'm Michael, from Washington, DC and I just bought a 2013 328iX.

My F30 has the basic leather steering wheel; coming from a Tahoe I initially had no issue with this, until I got a loaner 2016 X3 with the M sport wheel. At first I was turned off by the thickness, but I had the loaner over a weekend and I guess it almost immediately became comfortable and just seemed right. When I picked up my car, it was really the only thing I missed (other than the head-up display, but there's no way in hell I'd think about a retrofit for that considering what I've seen--and all the third party ones are inferior and look terrible IMO so I guess I'll just go without until next bimmer.)

Anyway, ideally I'd like to swap just the wheel portion for the newer M one, but I realize the airbag/faceplate are different anyway, so it would probably be the whole wheel which I've found to be in the neighborhood of $1500 or so. But realistically I would probably go for a similarly thick, luxurious leather OEM M wheel that was compatible (older) and just swap the wheel portion. I don't care about the M badging, but I do want OEM and a clean look, but most importantly a big thick ass gorgeous wheel... for as little money as possible haha!

Some questions:

Is a swap for whatever the model # wheel in the 2016 X3 (F25 I believe) even possible on my F30? The whole wheel, or what?

What would be the difficulty swapping just a compatible wheel portion myself, removing/replacing airbag and controls?

Can you trust the parts on ebay?

Thanks in advance!