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In this post, I will show the process to remove and reinstall a BMW F10 steering wheel. I removed it so I could repair the cruise control switch as shown in this post and restore the steering wheel as shown in this post.
Steering Wheel Removal
Unscrew the floor cover. I don’t have a liner covering the battery compartment. Apparently, for some cars like the diesels, it’s like that from the factory. You might have to remove a few clips and then remove the liner before you get to the point shown in the image if you have a different model F10.
Unscrew the positive battery terminal where shown using a 10 mm socket.
Note: When screwing it back on, the torque specified by BMW is 5 Nm.
Undo the clip from both sides and pull up the power distribution module from the battery. Next, put a rag or a piece of cardboard or something to isolate the terminal and prevent it from accidentally making contact. Now leave the car for a few minutes to make sure everything is discharged.
Note: Once you disconnect the battery, be sure to keep your trunk open, or you won’t be able to get back in to reconnect the battery. You can drop down the backseat just in case, so you can get back into it if it accidentally closes. Or you can open up the hood and connect a battery/charger to the terminals there to temporarily power on your car so the trunk opens up.
Now we can go on to removing the steering wheel. There is a hole on either side that you have to stick a flat-head screwdriver into to release a wire spring holding in the airbag. You can do one at a time.
Here you can see what is supposed to happen and how the spring needs to be compressed.
Hold the airbag with one hand as it pops out, and be careful as its wire is still connected. Disconnect it by pressing in the connector tab where shown and pulling it out.
Now, disconnect the other two connectors.
Unscrew the 15mm bolt.
As you can see, there is a notch at the bottom, so we don’t have to worry about steering wheel alignment later when we reinstall it. We simply find the groove for the notch and push it in.
Steering Wheel Reinstall
So for the reinstall, we need to do everything we just did but in reverse, obviously. The only thing we’ll change is to add some blue thread locker to the bolt and use a torque wrench to tighten it to the specified torque.
Note: According to BMW, you should replace the bolt after you unscrew it, but I ain’t doing that. Generally, if the bolt looks ok we can reuse it.
Torque it to 62Nm.
Reconnect the airbag while holding it with one hand and then just firmly push it in, making sure it is correctly locked in on both sides. Now you can reconnect the battery, start up your car, and make sure all the buttons on the steering wheel work and you aren’t getting any airbag errors.
