I managed to swap out my standard wheel for the Multifunction wheel.

Please note this How to is for guidance only, I will not be held responsible for personal injury or damage to your car while doing this mod.

Time taken for me with average to good car mechanical skills

2 hours

well 2 hours and 20 mins

20 mins to find goddam mirror

Well here goes:

Parts Required:

Multifunction Steering Wheel

Airbag wiring loom - 1K0 971 584 C

Slip ring - 1K0 959 653 C

Steering wheel controller now there is a couple of types of controller

1K0 953 549 AK - required for Steering wheel with paddles

1K0 953 549 AJ - required for wheels without paddles

Some of the parts might already be in the car so please check. I know for a fact that the airbag wiring is definatley required.

Tools Required:

22mm Torx bit for steering wheel bolt

1/2 inch ratchet or bar equivalent

Small flat head screwdriver

10mm socket for battery terminal

T25 Torx bits.

Adjustable Torque wrench

Small mirror

Locktite

Step 1:

Using the height lever under neath put the steering wheel at its lowest position.

First of all pull off the trim located above the steering wheel but just under the clocks,

you might need trim removal tool for the but i managed to pull it off using my hands.

Step 2:

Now start the car and turn the steering wheel 90 degrees to the left, get the small mirror and place behind the steering wheel have a look and you will see an opening behind the steering wheel, grab your flathead screwdriver and place it over the clip and push down and the right side of the airbag will come free.

Now turn the wheel 90 degrees to the right, switch the car off and go to the bonnet and disconnect the negative terminal of the battery, make sure this is done to save your face from splattering all over the airbag just incase it explodes. Once this is done undo the second clip of the airbag and it should come free, Take care though with airbag as it might drop out and break the airbag clip connected to the slip ring:

Undo the yellow clip connected to the slip ring, do not force the clip out, there should be a grey clip to the right of the yellow plug this should be pulled towards you and the plug should come free.

Place the airbag face down i.e VW emblem showing up somewhere safe.

Step 3:

Using the 22mm Torx and 1/2 inch socket and ratchet set undo the centre bolt of the steering wheel:

Note that this bolt is made to be used 5 times if you screw and unscrew this five times you will have to buy a new one.

VW bods have made lining up the steering wheel straight foward to there is little dot on the slip ring and a hash mark on the wheel for easy guidance when putting it back on to make sure it is straight.

Pull the wheel off carefully.

Step 4:

Only to be done if you are swapping over the controller as mentioned above

Undo the top half of the trim of the steering wheel controller cover, this is just clipped on so it should just pull off upwards.

Now you will have to pull the bottom cover off too but this is screwed down in 3 places, two of the screws are to the left and right of the slip ring and one under the wheel height lever.

undo these and the cover should just slip out

Step 5:

The steering wheel module is underneath all this and should be identified with a yellow tamperproof seal:

to undo this there is two harnesses going to the back, this should unclip and pull off

There is a small screw in front of the controller and once this is unscrewed off the controller will drop out.

Put the new controller in its place plug in harness and should emit a beep when you do.

Place trim around the slip ring in reverse of above.

Step 6:

Go grab your airbag and rewire using your new harness, the only extra wire and plug you will see is the one that goes into the new wheel the rest of the wiring is exactly the same so just unplug and plug in the new one.

Step 7:

Place the MFSW on to the slip ring remembering to align the hash mark and the dot the best you can and secure with the centre bolt(put the some locktite on the thread before you screw it in)

make sure this is tightend to 50nM.

Step 8:

Align up the airbag and plug in the yellow connecter there will be a hard click when you push down.

Push in the black connector from the new harness into the bottom spoke.

Press in the airbag and make sure the two latched engag there will be two hard clicks when this is done and recheck that the airbag is secure.

Step 9:

Place the above trim in it place.

Redo the negative battery terminal.

Start the car and straighten the wheel.

The following dash lights will light up and stay on constantly:

Power steering

ESP:

At this stage you probably brick it.

Dont worry this doesnt mean messing with VAG COM or a trip to the dealers.

To estinguish the Power steering light do the following:

One full lock of the steering wheel to the left

Straighten the wheel

One full lock to the right

Straighten wheel

Drive foward not goin over 5 MPH and the light should go out.

This needs to be done because the Steering angle sensor was knocked out due to the slip ring being moved.

The other light simply press the ESP button, turn off the car, Start the car and press the ESP button again and it should go out.

If they don't then this means you will have to go to the dealer to have it reset unless you are a wizz with trusty VAG COM.

Now you will have to program the new Steering wheel controller with VAG COM:

Control Module Coding

The following is the label file for 16 – Steering Wheel which needs to be reprogrammed..

* 0?xxxxx: Vehicle Type
o 0 = Normal
o 1 = Special Purpose (e.g., Taxi)
* 0x?xxxx: Transmission
o 0 = Manual Transmission
o 1 = Automatic Transmission
* 0xx?xxx: Steering Wheel
o 0 = Steering Wheel without Multifunction
o 1 = 3-Spoke Steering Wheel without Multifunction
o 2 = 3/4-Spoke Steering Wheel with Multifunction without Cruise Control
o 3 = 3/4-Spoke Steering Wheel with Multifunction with Cruise Control
* 0xxx?xx: Additional Equipment
o +1 = Tiptronic (Shift Paddles)
* 0xxxx?x: Board Computer / Cruise Control System (CCS)
o 0 = w/o Board Computer and w/o Cruise Control System (CCS)
o 1 = with Board Computer and w/o Cruise Control System (CCS)
o 2 = w/o Board Computer and with Cruise Control System (CCS)
o 4 = with Board Computer and with Cruise Control System (CCS)
* 0xxxxx?: Rear Wiper
o 1 = Rear Wiper not installed
o 2 = Rear Wiper installed

The original soft code on my car was as follows:

00xxxxx = normal vehicle type
0x1xxxx = automatic transmission
0xx0xxx = steering wheel w/o multifunction
0xxx0xx = no shift paddles
0xxxx2x = w/o MFD and w/ cruise control
0xxxxx1 = no rear wiper

0010021 = old soft code

The revised code was as follows:

00xxxxx = normal vehicle type
0x1xxxx = automatic transmission
0xx2xxx = 3-spoke steering wheel w/ multifunction
0xxx0xx = no shift paddles
0xxxx2x = w/o MFD and w/ cruise control
0xxxxx1 = no rear wiper

0012021 = new soft code (note that 0013021 might also work)

Once completed it should look like:

Now stand back and enjoy your hard afternoons graft

Oh and don't forget the following which is very important:

Any questions give me a shout.

Hope this helps anyone trying to this mod.

A good tip for people undertaking this.

Before you reconnect the battery terminal when the install is complete, turn the ignition key to the "On" position and leave it like that. Then reconnect the battery. If the airbag has a dickyfit and decides to blow when you connect the battery, you'll be safe under the bonnet.

However, if you connect the battery and then turn the ignition on, if there is a fault and the airbag blows, your face is going to be right in front of it!
 

cheers Rustynuts,

I forgot to mention that.

As that the sequence i done to make sure.

Cheers

Good write up. i will add it to the list of links to make it easier to find.

Paul 

Hi,

 The total cost of parts:

 MFSW: £89

Steering Wheel Controller: £90

Airbag Wiring: £24

Total cost for me: £203

I got a quote from the dealer and it was close to £400.

Cheers

Right I have an r32 so already have the correct controller..

BUT a new wheel is alot more on the R32, but the plastic parts where the MSW controls are, are removable.. anyone know if these parts can be bought separetly and then retro fitted to an existing r32 steering wheel?? 

great howto BTW 

Andymac

Although the buttons are available as a seperate entity from the dealer I dont think that they can be retrofitted to the actual non MFSW.

The inside of the MFSW looks deeper than the standard one.

The buttons are screwed in place also there is a seperate connection at the base of the wheel for the functionality of the wheel.

Check this link of mine and it will show the inside of the wheel.

http://uk-mkivs.net/forums/thread/1004321.aspx

cheers

nah the steering wheel i picked up from Ebay for that much,

Dealers quote far too much, just keep searching on the bay and there are some from time to time,

in regards to the VAG-COM business, i unfortunatley lost the cable so I had a mate do it for me and he gave me a print out of the above.

hey,

sorry to resurrect this thread but am away to swap over my wheel for a gti with multifunction from the standard three spoke and was using this for a guide. Have i just misread or do you definitely need to by the slip ring in your list, is this different to the standard one? If so i assume you swap it just after you do the controller?

Many thanks for the help,

craig

 Sukh, sorry to pull this up again, but can you confirm two things please.

Firstly, when removing the controller from the bottom of the steering column, once the little torx screw is removed does it just fall down, or is there another latch internally that needs ot be removed with a 2.5mm drill bit or similar (got this bit from VWvortex) ?

Secondly, when everthing works, do the buttons illuminate when the lights are on, and what exact functions do you have with the buttons.I have already fitted the sreering wheel (awaiting for the controller) and my buttons look identical to yours (and I also currently only have the midline display as well on the dash).

The buttons are:

Left side:

Volume Up ?

Volume down ?

Star ?

Phone (assum eit only works with ethe VW bluetooth kit) ?

Right Button

MFD ?

OK?

track up ?

track down ?

Which of these work. Cheers for any information.

Regards

Andrew

 Andrew,

If i remember correctly, the controller has a black clip in the middle which needs to be sprung to one side then it should just come away in your hands, it also connected to a wiring loom to the rear of the controller which needs to be disconnected.

Once connected the buttons should illuminate when the lights are switched on.

I also have the midline cluster(not for long though ) and the functions I have are volume up and down,

Star for mute function

Phone button - you can use this either with OEM bluetooth or Parrot Kits.

OK - resets trip setting MPG etc

Up and down arrow button to scroll through the cluster.

The button with the lines through is redundant for those with midline clusters as its used for changing options in the highline display.

Hope this makes sense.

Cheers

 Cheers Sukh, very much appreciated. Do you not get track up and down at all from any button (i.e CD tracks etc) ?

Now just to get the correct controller. I fitted my wheel the other day and the new airbag wiring loom, but when I went to recode the soft coding it threw up an error (something like implausible value or something) and reset back to the coding I had before. I also noticed that the horn stopped working as well with the new loom.

I've put this down to the fact that I have the original steering module which doesn't understand the MFSW commands etc. I put my old loom back in and the horn worked just fine, so I guess I'll have to wait until VW get my new controller. 

Sukh  forgot to mention, I'm also doing the Highline upgrade in January. I've been speaking with a member on here (Mortygttdi) and we are ging to have a go soon. I already have the new cluster (prize cheap purchase from fleabay) and Mortygttdi has the VAG Commander and VCDS and is pretty confident that it's doable.

How are you getting your's done (if you don't mind me asking ?)

 Andrew,

Sorry about the late reply,

I will be doing it myself along wit my mate to sort out the VAG Com coding.

But wont be doing it for a while cus Im doing the R32 brake upgrade first.

Cheers

 Cheers Sukh.

If possible can I ask one further question?

When replacing my old steering wheel control module (1K0 953 549 F) with the newer one (1K0 953 549 AJ or AL), on the post above it seems that you just needed to recode the module using VAG-COM or VCDS and adapt the coding slightly form the original to take account of the MFSW.

However on another post entitled "***Update 8/10/07 ** Multifunction Steering Wheel", you went onto say :

" put everything togther and started the car i found that I didn't have PS, so i though do the sensor calibriation and it didnt work at this point I bricked it.

Tried for about 1/2 hour to set the sensor and didn't work.

This morning I took it down the dealer and recoded the PS settings took £40 for it."

Does this mean that a dealers input is definalty required even though I have a licensed VCDS and cable on my Laptop ? What actually needed to be programmed for the £40 if you don't mind me asking ?

Cheers

Andrew

 Hi mate,

To be fair I dont really know what the dealers actually did, when I booked in the car the technician told me that the controller didnt have no basic settings for Power steering. So he said he'll do some settings and that was that.

Though the controllers are said to be shipped programmed, I think they dont or they lose their settings when plugged into the car, so you probablly wont know until you install into the car, and if you know what your doing with VAG COM then it shouldnt be an issue. I havent got VAG COM so I couldnt even tell you what settings I have. Sorry.

Cheers

thanks for your help.. this guide is very helpfull..

i just had a quick question.. whilst on the phone to VW i was told the airbag from a non multi-functional will not fit in the MF wheel.. i argued it has been done as you have shown but they insisted i buy an airbag along with the controller.. can you please confirm the old airbad did fit?

thanks

 Mate,

Your dealer is talking out of his arse.

I have done and the pictures prove it, show him this thread and tell him he d