Removing steering wheel and airbag

To remove the wheel first disconnect the battery and wait a few minutes for the capacitor in the airbag to lose charge..

 

Use a trim tool to remove the piece of trim around the cruise knob, it has fixings front and back that will just unclip with a bit of persuasion.. you will then see the T30 torx screw on that side... The bright silver screw...

 

 

Then you have to remove the switch panel on the other side, place you finger where mine is in this picture and you can feel an edge, it doesn't take much to pop the switch panel off, it's only the top bit that comes off...

 

 

This is what comes off, don't worry the rest is fine as it is and no bits will fall out...

 

 

Then you can see the airbag bolt that side, the bolts are tight so be careful you don't slip off and damage something with the spanner..

 

When they are both undone (they are held captive so they won't fall out) you can lift off the airbag, just turn it over, top towards you and unclip the horn wire from the bottom, you then have to remove the two airbag connections that look like this...

 

 

You have to prize up the yellow tag in the middle, I used a fine screwdriver, they are an all plastic plug so no bother with shorting it out or effecting it with static...

 

 

This shows the yellow tag on the orange connection where it needs to be to remove the plug, pull the plug straight up off the airbag, I used a small plastic trim tool to prize it off... remove both of them and put it somewhere safe...

You then have this in front of you... If you need to change any of the buttons on the left and the wheel buttons on the right then this is far enough, to remove the cruise buttons you will have to take the wheel off to remove the back cover to get to the screws.

 

 

To remove the wheel unplug the connector at the top of the wheel that goes to the squib (clock spring) then undo the 19mm nut but leave it on a few turns, make sure the wheel is straight, grab it both sides and yank it quickly to remove it from the splines, mine came off reasonable easily, if yours doesn't then a cheap three prong puller would work... Remove the wheel feeding the airbag wire through the wheel..

 

You are then left with this...

 

 

DO NOT PLAY WITH THE SQUIB, DO NOT TURN IT....

 

It is like a clock spring inside and will only tolerate turning a few turns each way, if you turn it you can damage or snap the wires inside and they are not cheap to replace...

 

Refitting is the above in reverse, if you put the wheel on a couple of splines out and it's not straight when you drive it, don't go far before you correct it, the clock spring is a steering wheel sensor as well and it will illuminate fault codes if it's not straight....

 

That's it...