Steering wheel controls die and come back

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tsch993

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Hey guys,

Went offroad for a 2 day trip this weekend and noticed yesterday toward the end of the day that my steering wheel controls had basically died. The backlight was fine, just the volume, tracks up and down, phone, and source button were unresponsive. The ‘i’ button was also not changing the DTE, L/100km and trip computer on the dash.

My cruise control controls were fine, on the other side of the steering wheel. At the time I put it down to the hours of use or something. Tried restarting the car, didn’t fix it.
Next morning, started the car and it’s all working again - great! 5 minutes later, dead. Didn’t work the entire 4 hour trip home. Went home, car off for a few hours, started it again, and it works. 5 minutes of driving later, it’s dead.

I imagine it’ll happen again tomorrow. Now, I would blame the head unit, but it cannot be, because the ‘i’ button only talks to the trip computer, and it dies when the other controls do, and works when they do, so I’m thknking it’s the switch bank.

Any ideas?
 
It's more likely the clock spring inside the steering column. This is what I am talking about. A flat-bladed screwdriver frees the airbag. T4 (I think, might be T5) torx bit for the steering column fascia. Philips screwdriver to remove the clock spring.

Easy enough to test: on loose-ish ground wait for it to fail and just turn the steering wheel. I noticed mine when my horn would only work with the steering wheel about 30 degrees left (so a slight turn, but not what you want at freeway speeds).
 
It's more likely the clock spring inside the steering column. This is what I am talking about. A flat-bladed screwdriver frees the airbag. T4 (I think, might be T5) torx bit for the steering column fascia. Philips screwdriver to remove the clock spring.

Easy enough to test: on loose-ish ground wait for it to fail and just turn the steering wheel. I noticed mine when my horn would only work with the steering wheel about 30 degrees left (so a slight turn, but not what you want at freeway speeds).

If it was the clock spring, shouldn’t I also lose the horn and cruise controls? Or is there one for each set of switches and the horn?
 
The electrical path is through a ribbon that wraps around inside the unit. It doesn't always break cleanly, the ribbon is quite wide. On my second clock spring failure I couldn't use the cruise control adjust functions unless I was steering to the right, but I could turn it on and off whenever I wanted. All depends where it starts to tear.
 
Ah, fair enough.

Am I able to inspect the ribbon cable without taking the ensure unit out first?
I tried testing the switches today, again it died after 5 minutes and died whilst driving in a straight line, so I’m still lost how this could be a cable or something to do with turning the wheel. I tried testing the switches after they’d died by turning the steering wheel but it didn’t work again no matter which way the wheel faced.
 
The ribbon itself is inside the mechanism. There are electrical connections on the outside and you could use a multimeter to test them all. I did forget the 21/22mm socket to undo the steering wheel and remove it, sorry about that. Make sure you mark the steering wheel so that it goes back on the correct way.

If you take the clock spring out, make absolutely certain that you do not, at all, turn the inner part from the outer part. If they get out of whack, when you put it back in it might pull the cable too tight and rip the entire thing out. Replacement units have a plastic locking tab that you place on the unit to keep it from doing that.

If you DO turn it, you need to make sure that you get the number of non-resistive turns correct. The steering wheel can do about 4.5 turns from lock to lock. I made that mistake and made sure my clock spring could turn 2.5 turns in both directions - worked fine.
 
Thanks for your help mate :)

I’ve sent an enquiry to a parts supplier to get the right part number, and I’ll tackle it from there

Am I likely to need a harmonic balancer remover to get off the wheel, or just some decent whacks?
 

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