How to Remove Bmw E46 Steering Wheel

I had the opportunity to purchase a secondhand BMW M Performance Electronic Steering Wheel (part# 32302344148) and jumped on it. It's a beautiful piece that is even better to hold in person, and compliments the car nicely.

I decided to tackle it DIY. It took me a good bit of searching to find the original BMW instructions, and they aren't super clear for your average DIY project, so I'm going to try to augment it here and share some shortcuts and tips learned along the way.

For anyone starting this, do download the original instructions, attached at the bottom of this post, and keep them alongside mine.

This was all done on my F80 M3. This is your likely starting place.

And this is where you will end up!

1) Disconnect the negative terminal of the battery. No pictures here, it's under the passenger rear corner trunk trim. 10mm socket.

2) Remove the airbag. This (and most original pieces) will be re-used, so take care. On the sides of the wheel are two holes. Put something dull in there (I used the T-20 screwdriver) and press in on the retaining clips. As you push on the clips, pull the airbag lightly on that side with your other hand, and you will feel it pop free of the retaining clip.

After the airbag is free of the retaining clips, remove the single yellow connector harness inside at the top of the steering wheel. The airbag is now free, place it aside safely.

3) Remove the steering wheel center trim. BMW calls it a "finisher". One T-20 screw directly behind the bottom of the trim (6 o'clock wheel position, seen in a mirror below) and two T-20 screws inside the airbag recess at the top corners.

Once you have the screws free, it is held in place by a series of pop clips around the middle. Use a small pick to help them free so you don't break any tabs. The two trickiest, stickiest ones are right next to the joining of the airbag "circle" portion and the wheel "spoke" portion. Use a mirror to help see, and a pick to free them. Some good hand wiggling works well too.

4) Disassembly of the inside of the steering wheel comes next. Unplug as many of the connectors as you can reasonably reach, you'll get the rest later. Start with the 3-4 plugs (depending on options... my car has all options) on the black control box located at the 5 o'clock position of the airbag cavity. Once free, remove it and set it aside. You will be transferring it over to the new wheel.

Next remove the shift paddles. A single silver T-20 screw on the front side of the wheel (now exposed) holds each in place, as seen in the pic above. Place aside to transfer to new wheel.

The BMW instructions call for removing the wheel vibration mechanism at this point. I did as instructed, but it is much easier if you wait. If you have a long thin pick you can do so now by prying up the bottom of the gold colored clip. If you don't, or are having a hard time, do it 2 steps later after removing the wheel rear trim... it is much easier to do it at this point.

5) Remove the steering wheel from the hub. An impact wrench and 16mm impact socket will take it right off. (Make sure you have unclipped AT LEAST the remaining center two harnesses which connect the wheel and the steering hub.

6) With the wheel off, flip it over and look at the back. Remove two more T-20 screws (black) which hold the rear trim to the wheel, as well as the multi-function buttons. The multi-function buttons remain attached to each other (left side to right side) by a wiring harness. Set these aside for transfer to the new wheel.

**If you didn't remove the wheel vibration mechanism yet, go ahead and do it now. You've got full access to the retaining clip now. Much easier! Transfer this mechanism and clip over to the new wheel now.

You should now have a bare, original steering wheel. Set aside and wrap it up for safe keeping. Next we'll tackle the wiring, and then re-assemble the new wheel.

WIRING

7) Start by separating the steering column trim. It's held together tightly by a series of clips, but there are no screws. Use a trim tool, pick, or small screwdriver to help separate the pieces. Take your time and take care, this is not the place to break a clip. The top piece releases upwards first. Push it back and rest it on the column, it will stay there until reassembly. The bottom piece separates by gently pushing two clips outward from the top. NOTE: the bottom trim has two small harnesses coming out of it. Disconnect them carefully as you go. Once separated, remove and set aside the bottom trim piece.

8) Remove the steering electronics hub. We will need to add the data line to a connector on the back of this component, but unfortunately (on my car) it was not possible to remove the connector without removing the whole piece. The connector requires the release of a safety tab, which is blocked by the column. To remove this, remove 4 silver 7mm bolts at the corners (seen above). Then it slides off and the connectors are easily removed. Set the electronics hub aside until reassembly.

9) Move to the passenger footwell and disassemble the upper and side kick trim. Two 10mm nuts hold the top trim in place, and as you remove it carefully disconnect two harnesses, 1 for the 12v socket and 1 for the footwell lamp. To remove the kick panel, pull the door weatherstrip out around it, pull up on the front clip of the door edge runner, and pop the trim piece out by it's 3 pop clips. It's hard to describe but easy to do. Look at the picture below to see the backside and where the 3 pop clips are, and the edge facing the rear to see how it shares 1 clip with the door edge runner.

10) Now is a good time to fish the 1 wire needed to the steering wheel. Believe it or not, only 1 new wire is going to run to the steering wheel. The rest of the wiring will be done in the footwell. I find it easy to chase wires with a bent coat hanger. Start in the driver's side opening where we've opened up the steering wheel trim, and gently fish the wire down toward the passenger footwell. This is a bit of a "fishing trip" but you'll manage it. Don't push too hard, just keep re-directing it until you feel it hit soft plastic. Done right, you will easily find the passenger side trim. From the passenger footwell again, feel under the center console trim and pull the wire into the footwell. Tape up the white/blue wire lead and pull it back to the steering column. You will add this pin to the currently empty slot #4 of the second harness (plug A83*2B) according to the BMW instructions.

11) Red & Blue twisted pair harness. Back in the passenger footwell, locate the FEM body module. It is on the kick panel, under a gray plastic cover. Remove the cover with 1 T-20 screw and two push-in hinges on the side. Then, remove the first harness plug, which directions confusingly refer to as connector 2 (CON 2). Disassemble the plug and get to pins 18 (red) and 19 (blue/red). You will be removing them from the harness (depress exposed metal tab with a pick while pulling out), and putting them into the new supplied connector to create a plug-and-play "T" connection with the new harness. Sound confusing? It's easily done with the harness in hand, no worries. Also, don't worry if my connector looks different than yours, I mentioned mine was secondhand so I used a spare connector I have that fits, not the original one. Yours connector is likely black not blue. I recommend you do these two pins (18 & 19) one at a time so you don't have any chance of making the mistake of which color goes where. In case you do... 18 is red and 19 is blue/red.

12) Green/Brown harness. First, the green wire. This is the one "open ended" wire supplied that you are required to attach with a wire tap. For this wire, remove the second wiring connector on the FEM (called connector 3 or CON3 in the instructions) and locate pin 19. The instructions say it will be blue/red, but on my car it was red/blue. Either way, use pin 19. Unwind some of the loom tape to expose enough of the straightened wire to get a good tap on it.

For the brown wire (this is a GROUND wire), the BMW instructions say, not very helpfully, to "bend up the footwell trim" and locate one of two chassis ground connectors. I looked around but I never found what was referred to, and I didn't like the idea of just bending trim panels for fun, so I decided to take the easy route out and wire tapped it to the ground for the footwell light. It's just a small voltage ground wire, no big deal. This is way easier than whatever they heck they tell you to do with this wire, and works just fine.

DONE WITH WIRING!

13) Begin the cleanup and reassembly! Still have one huge wire loom coming off the control box? Don't worry, it's not used. Zip tie it in a nice tight loom and make an easy to hide bundle out of the control box and wires. They don't specify where to hide this thing, so I just let it rest on top of the re-installed passenger footwell trim. Begin by putting back the cover on the FEM body module, then the passenger kick trim cover, then get all your wires tidy and put it on top of the passenger kick cover as you slide it back in to place. Reassembly is the opposite of removal.

14) Next, back to the drivers seat to re-install the steering electronics hub, with the harness you added the new wire to. Both wiring harnesses, 4 7mm bolts, and then re-attach trim carefully. Don't forget to reconnect the two small harnesses on the lower trim!

15) If you've made it this far, it's all easy from here. Reinstall all of the pieces you removed from your original wheel into the new M Performance Electronic Steering Wheel. Multi-function buttons, rear trim, and shift paddles go first. Don't install the new carbon fiber finisher quite yet!

Next, put the wheel on the hub and re-install the 16mm center hub bolt.

CAREFULLY reconnect all of the in-wheel harnesses/wires, the control module, and tuck the wires out of the way. There are more wires in this setup than in your original so it can be hard to get them all out of the way, but you'll need to in order to get the airbag on. This picture below shows it re-assembled, but I did have to push those wires further back in order to get the airbag on, this wasn't quite good enough!

16) Finish by installing your new, gorgeous, carbon fiber M performance finisher. Two T-20 screws inside and the smaller black one at the bottom, installed from the back. Plug the airbag back in and install it by pressing the retention pins in past the clips in their holes. Go reconnect the battery and fire it up!

There is no software coding required to complete this install. You are now ready to use your M Performance Electronic Steering Wheel! Enjoy!

How to Remove Bmw E46 Steering Wheel

Source: https://f80.bimmerpost.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1204092

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