Steering wheel button trim refurb

BabyTiger · Post by **BabyTiger** » Sun Jul 18, 2021 11:13 pm

Pleased with the result, after a refurb of the peeling soft touch on the steering wheel button surrounds. No before/after shots, but the surround was very worn and peeled/white plastic in places.

Process: strip all plastics and remove all the buttons and modules. Sand down existing soft-touch material, clean & degrease, plastic primer, matte black, matte lacquer. Reassemble and enjoy.

: PXL_20210718_123620429.jpg (144.61 KiB) Viewed 790 times

iiNNeX · Post by **iiNNeX** » Sun Jul 18, 2021 11:20 pm

Nice, I was tempted to do mine in Piano Black gloss to match the rest of the trim but after seeing yours I might just go matte or satin finish...

Tomko · Post by **Tomko** » Mon Jul 19, 2021 9:04 am

Looks great! Waiting for my re-trimmed wheel to arrive then going to do the same. Got a crack in one of my plastic bits though, hoping some epoxy is enough to sort that.

BabyTiger · Post by **BabyTiger** » Mon Jul 19, 2021 5:28 pm

Tomko wrote: ↑Mon Jul 19, 2021 9:04 am Looks great! Waiting for my re-trimmed wheel to arrive then going to do the same. Got a crack in one of my plastic bits though, hoping some epoxy is enough to sort that.

Who is retrimming your wheel? I only found one company in Germany that will retrim the individual steering wheel. It has a special inlaid wood piece and no one local is able to retrim these.

Zulu4 · Post by **Zulu4** » Tue Jul 20, 2021 5:08 pm

Good job.
Do all the plastic parts just pry off ? Or is it necessary to remove the horn push to remove them ?

tomscott · Post by **tomscott** » Tue Jul 20, 2021 5:37 pm

What would be good is for someone to do a full write up!

Such a big wear item surprised no-one has actually done a full how to.

Tomko · Post by **Tomko** » Wed Jul 21, 2021 4:46 pm

BabyTiger wrote: ↑Mon Jul 19, 2021 5:28 pm Who is retrimming your wheel? I only found one company in Germany that will retrim the individual steering wheel. It has a special inlaid wood piece and no one local is able to retrim these.

Royal Steering Wheels. Not sure if you've tried the guys but everyone that seems to get re-trimmed wheels seems to use these guys so giving them a go. Would be surprised if they said they couldn't do yours even if they did perhaps have to charge a bit more for the added complexity.

iiNNeX · Post by **iiNNeX** » Wed Jul 21, 2021 5:30 pm

Another vote for Royal, will be getting mine done by them in the near future, have previously done 4 other BMW wheels with them. Top quality and fast turnaround.

Zulu4 · Post by **Zulu4** » Thu Jul 29, 2021 10:20 am

Zulu4 wrote: ↑Tue Jul 20, 2021 5:08 pm Good job.
Do all the plastic parts just pry off ? Or is it necessary to remove the horn push to remove them ?

Thank you BabyTiger for inspiring me to do this job.

So to answer my own question, it was necessary with my steering wheel, to remove the horn push / airbag to get to the plastic parts. As I have flappy paddles, these had to come off too.

It was all fairly straight forward. Disconnected the battery. Used the many youtube guides to remove the airbag with a screwdriver, then unscrewed the torx bolts at the rear of the wheel (2 for the lower trims and 1 each side for the buttons). The paddles had their own torx bolts. Unfortunately my plastic parts have become quite brittle so a number of tabs just fell off and I ended up using gorilla glue to try to fix some back on.

Rubbing off the old soft touch layer takes quite a bit of time. I tried using a Dremel to try to speed things up but I found there was a danger of cutting into the plastic with it. In the end I used 180 grit wet & dry to get it off, then 240, then 400 to finish. Then primed and satin black finish. It took me the best part of a day to do.

I clumsily managed to snap the earth wire from one of the connectors when I stupidly dangled the airbag from the cables, so repairing that took some time (seen in second photo).

Some random photos to help visualise behind the airbag:

Zulu4 · Post by **Zulu4** » Thu Jul 29, 2021 10:41 am

Job done.
Just need to reset the windows and clock now for the umpteenth time.

BabyTiger · Post by **BabyTiger** » Wed Sep 01, 2021 8:15 pm

Sorry I haven't logged on for some time but glad you got your plastics done. I'm really pleased with the results every time I drive.

MichaelK · Post by **MichaelK** » Mon Sep 06, 2021 7:16 am

Mine so badly needs this doing. A previous owner has actually wrapped mine matt black but it's now pealing on edges.
What matt black spray paint works best?

Zulu4 · Post by **Zulu4** » Mon Sep 06, 2021 8:12 am

I used this as it is described as 'tough', so I hope it will wear well:
https://www.eurocarparts.com/p/simoniz- ... -549772281

MichaelK · Post by **MichaelK** » Mon Sep 06, 2021 9:42 am

Zulu4 wrote: ↑Mon Sep 06, 2021 8:12 am I used this as it is described as 'tough', so I hope it will wear well:
https://www.eurocarparts.com/p/simoniz- ... -549772281

Cheers for the link, I'll order some in a bit

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