[bmwenjoyer]

Hey everyone, I bit the bullet and ordered a custom hand made F30 steering wheel. It looks and feels great, and I paid extra for the wheel to have heated functionality. When I got the wheel, it didn't come with a matching heated steering wheel plug, but instead, four wires. The OEM steering wheel heating wiring has 4 wires, one brown and one black, and two small black ones, going into a plug, but the aftermarket one just has 4 wires and no plug.

Long story short - I want to get my heated steering wheel working, but I don't want to cut off the plug from my OEM steering wheel. For the life of me I have not been able to find the OEM part number, or equivalent, for the OEM heating core plug.

According to the manufacturer of the wheel, the red is power, black is ground, and the small blue wires are for "temperature control." What would you guys do if you were to try to make this work?

Pictures attached.

[greyf36]

Originally Posted by gpf30335i

Hey everyone, I bit the bullet and ordered a custom hand made F30 steering wheel. It looks and feels great, and I paid extra for the wheel to have heated functionality. When I got the wheel, it didn't come with a matching heated steering wheel plug, but instead, four wires. The OEM steering wheel heating wiring has 4 wires, one brown and one black, and two small black ones, going into a plug, but the aftermarket one just has 4 wires and no plug.

Long story short - I want to get my heated steering wheel working, but I don't want to cut off the plug from my OEM steering wheel. For the life of me I have not been able to find the OEM part number, or equivalent, for the OEM heating core plug.

According to the manufacturer of the wheel, the red is power, black is ground, and the small blue wires are for "temperature control." What would you guys do if you were to try to make this work?

Pictures attached.

Can you tap the wires off the wheels into the stock harness setup?

[bmwenjoyer]

Originally Posted by greyf36

Can you tap the wires off the wheels into the stock harness setup?

Yeah that's definitely a possibility, but wouldn't that require cutting into the OEM harness wires? If possible I'd like to not cut any OEM wires but yeah I think that might be something I just need to do to make it work.

I'm also thinking about just cutting off the wires from the stock wheel and splicing those wires to the aftermarket ones.

Oh, another fun part of this equation is that I haven't been able to get my airbag off since I installed this new wheel. The little holes where you press the spring release to pop the airbag off just straight up isn't working and I have no idea how to get the airbag off again. The first time was easy. I think I'm going to have to just bring this to a shop unfortunately.

[greyf36]

yeah the airbag is something you wanna leave to the PRO...unless u have tons of experience taking it off the wheel.

where did u get this heated wheel and does it come with a switch?

[bmwenjoyer]

Originally Posted by greyf36

yeah the airbag is something you wanna leave to the PRO...unless u have tons of experience taking it off the wheel.

where did u get this heated wheel and does it come with a switch?

When shopping around for one, I found that there are some popular brands offering "custom steering wheels", and after some digging I realized almost all of them are just dropshipping from different companies in China who are actually making the wheels by hand. I found one of the most popular companies and reached out through Alibaba for a significant fraction of the price these other companies had quoted me.

No, just wires for the heating core. My car already came with the heating functionality so the switch is already installed in my car. I just need to connect the steering wheel cables to the existing wiring harness that currently has one unplugged plug in the steering wheel behind the airbag tucked in.

[toxik]

yeah i remember shopping around for a custom wheel, I wanted to retain the heating function and noticed this as well, most vendors I inquired with about this specific issue told me they only come with cable you'd need to splice in yourself. i was also a bit paranoid about using some "aftermarket" heating element.

as far as not being able to get airbag off, are you sure that no cables got in the way of the holes? its a common issue if you're not careful when transferring over all the modules from OEM wheel to new one, sometimes you dont route the cables out of the way of holes and they end up blocking the release springs for your tool. Make sure you're using something stubby like an allen/hex key and not a flathead btw.

[smrtypants44]

Looks like a replacement harness is about $70

32307848331 (MT)
32307848337 (AT)

https://www.realoem.com/bmw/enUS/sho...diagId=32_2216 (verify with your vin before you buy)

You could look up the part number of that plug (and 4 terminal ends) via bmw tis but its like $30 for a 24 hour subscription- so its probably cheaper and less effort to just buy a new harness

[LongRuf]

Any update on this?

[bmwenjoyer]

Originally Posted by LongRuf

Any update on this?

I just dropped it off at my local go-to european shop to have them splice the plug from the OEM wheel. I'll update how it goes.

[bmwenjoyer]

Originally Posted by toxik

yeah i remember shopping around for a custom wheel, I wanted to retain the heating function and noticed this as well, most vendors I inquired with about this specific issue told me they only come with cable you'd need to splice in yourself. i was also a bit paranoid about using some "aftermarket" heating element.

as far as not being able to get airbag off, are you sure that no cables got in the way of the holes? its a common issue if you're not careful when transferring over all the modules from OEM wheel to new one, sometimes you dont route the cables out of the way of holes and they end up blocking the release springs for your tool. Make sure you're using something stubby like an allen/hex key and not a flathead btw.

You were absolutely right about this. Turns out that, although I thought I cleared the cables, I didn't at all, and the airbag "clips" were pressed into the wiring harness and actually broke some of the wires to a point to where the wires were exposed. My tech was able to fix it and make the wiring safe, but that's why the airbag wasn't releasing.

Anyways, apparently the tech put together all of the wires but didn't test it before he put it all back together, so I have to bring it back tomorrow because it isn't working. There are two small blue cables that I needed them to test and find out which one is which. There's a 50% chance that it won't work, so I told them to test both configurations of the small blue wires. You'd think that the first thing you'd do before putting it all back together is to make sure the damn thing works.

[toxik]

Originally Posted by gpf30335i

You were absolutely right about this. Turns out that, although I thought I cleared the cables, I didn't at all, and the airbag "clips" were pressed into the wiring harness and actually broke some of the wires to a point to where the wires were exposed. My tech was able to fix it and make the wiring safe, but that's why the airbag wasn't releasing.

Anyways, apparently the tech put together all of the wires but didn't test it before he put it all back together, so I have to bring it back tomorrow because it isn't working. There are two small blue cables that I needed them to test and find out which one is which. There's a 50% chance that it won't work, so I told them to test both configurations of the small blue wires. You'd think that the first thing you'd do before putting it all back together is to make sure the damn thing works.

it happens, i just hope you get everything working right!

[bmwenjoyer]

Originally Posted by toxik

it happens, i just hope you get everything working right!

They dug into it today again and found more broken cables. Specifically one of the two small blue cables that controlled the heated steering wheel. I'm happy to report that it's finally working great! Everything works fine, they ended up just soldering the wires together instead of using a plug.

They charged me for 4 hours of labor over the span of the last two days, which sucks, but they had to fix a ton of broken wires which saved me the cost of buying a completely new wiring harness. I'm honestly stoked they were able to fix the wiring and get everything working.

Lesson learned, I'm taking my car to a shop next time I get a custom steering wheel. I attached some of the pics my shop sent me, apologies for the quality.

[LongRuf]

Very cool. So the heat works as intended without issue now like OEM? Does it feel hotter/cooler/same as OEM wheel?

[bmwenjoyer]

Originally Posted by LongRuf

Very cool. So the heat works as intended without issue now like OEM? Does it feel hotter/cooler/same as OEM wheel?

Yes that's correct. They ended up soldering the wires together and it worked after all of the broken cables were fixed. It's hotter than the OEM wheel but I'm stoked about that because the stock one wasn't warm enough for me (I'm really tall and my extremities get cold lol).

All in all I'm happy, it just took 4 hours of labor instead of 1 or 2 because of all of the broken cables. You live and you learn. If I ever get another custom steering wheel, I'm having a shop install it 100%.

[Atam]

Hi, I’m having the same issue and all the shops I called were around 120 plus an hour. They said they need to test the wires to see which one is ground and what not… I’m wondering if you had a chance to take a picture of the wires of the aftermarket wheel? I’m trying to figure out which one is ground and power.

[1QuikWS6]

AZA Autowheel is probably the best custom steering wheel vendor out there - they have heated option for any/all of their wheels (incl. carbon fiber)

That's where I recently purchased my LED Display wheel with heated option. When I ordered the wheel I made sure to ask if the heated portion (wires) had the mating OEM connector attached for simple PnP & they stated yes - and it did

So AZA is a company that sells heated wheels WITH the OEM PnP connector

[bmwenjoyer]

Originally Posted by Atam

Hi, I’m having the same issue and all the shops I called were around 120 plus an hour. They said they need to test the wires to see which one is ground and what not… I’m wondering if you had a chance to take a picture of the wires of the aftermarket wheel? I’m trying to figure out which one is ground and power.

You just need to test the wires, testing them takes 30 seconds. Off the top of my head the black was power and brown was ground, but you still need to test them.

[Atam]

Originally Posted by bmwenjoyer

You just need to test the wires, testing them takes 30 seconds. Off the top of my head the black was power and brown was ground, but you still need to test them.

Is that something I can do myself?
Got quoted about 600 to test wired, and add connector

[bmwenjoyer]

Originally Posted by Atam

Is that something I can do myself?
Got quoted about 600 to test wired, and add connector

600 seems astronomical for that work. I paid 600 for multiple hours of my local indie shop diagnosing and fixing tons of broken wires that I messed up. That also included testing the wires, soldering them (they didn't use a connector they just tested then soldered the wires), and putting it back together.