So my car does not have paddles on the steering wheel. I purchased a wheel on eBay with paddles.
I’ve looked on other forums and one guys states that you do not need VAG-COM codes to do this. He has a write up on audizine I believe that he changed his non-paddle wheel for a paddle wheel and the car eventually learned itself.
Does this sound right?
Also if not, does anyone have the VAG-com codes to do this mod?
Yes I did. From what I remember, turn the wheel 90 degrees, use hand mirror to see clip in the hole on the back side of the air bag, unlcip, turn wheel other direction so it sits 90 degrees again and unclip the other side of the air bag, at that point center air bag portion pops towards you and you unclip a connector and then you get to the steering wheel bolt which takes a triple square bit to turn out. Don't remember what size, 12mm maybe? Also dont touch the stalks on the steering column while doing the swap, it can mess something up if you do. Google the s3 europrice steering wheel thread, I think there is more info there also. I used some towels and some painters tape to protect the steering column area while swapping, as prying on the clips can be a pita....I had to stop one day and try it again another before I got it. Doing one clip is easier than the other so if you're having trouble try the other side. If you get stuck, step away and cool off...don't force anything.
Just remembered I put the ignition to accessory so the column would unlock and then pulled the battery cable to power it off unlocked so you can turn the wheel, and not have to worry about the airbag going off. But be careful obviously, air bag is always possibly dangerous. Maybe go as far as putting the front wheels on some cardboard or something somewhat slippery to help the wheels steer easier while you turn them. Other option is connecting everything and powering car on again just to turn the wheel the other direction to get to the other air bag clip.
I just got a 2017 Premium post facelift and tried doing the swap and it doesn't seem to work plug and play. I tried looking in VAG-COM for measured value of the buttons clicking like I could on my Passat, but there is no option for this. I then noticed that although the Multifunction button plug for the buttons have 4 pins/wires connecting, but the main harness from the buttons to the main steering wheel only has 3 cables. I'm wondering if this 4th cable is what sends the tiptronic paddle signals to the ECU. Unfortunately I can't tell for sure. Has anyone done this successfully on a 2017+ Audi A3 premium to an S-line steering wheel? If so do know if the wiring has 3 or 4 cables from the multimuction button pod to the main yellow plug for the steering wheel?
The more I look at this the more I think the ECU on this vehicle may not support this functionality. Hopefully I can figure this out otherwise I just spent a ton of money for a flat bottom steering wheel without tiptronic functionality.
I'm not sure where I saw the other thread but one option would be to contact Europrice, their prices are nuts but they should be able to tell you what wheel your car should use as far as flat bottom wheels with paddles.
Yeah I already did as the wheel I bought was supposedly bought from them. They weren't of much help. Just wanted me to purchase a new one. Although they won't guarantee it will work as there are no returns on "electronic" items. So I can't even try.
Part of it is my fault as I didn't get the sellers name or else they would have been able to look up the exact part# used on their order. Maybe I can just replace the entire set up buttons, since the steering wheel is good. Need to see if I want to try again or go to the dealership to see if it is a coding thing (not doable via VAG-COM)
If I were going to replace my steering wheel with one with the paddle shifters and it didn't work, the first thing I would check out were wiring. Look at the main (yellow) airbag plug that connects your steering wheel to the slip ring. The upper row of its pins contains black and green wires. It's for the airbag detonator. The lower row has more occupied pins. From left to right, they are
1) Brown - ground
2) Blue - claxon
3) Violet - multifunction
4) White - paddleshift
The pin-out above is true for the PFL 8V, so be careful.
Do you have any white wire there? If you don't, you need to add it or buy another airbag harness.
P.S. I'm not a 8V owner yet, though I'm going to trade my 2012 8PA for a FL sedan. I used a few different steering wheels in my 8PA (A5 S-line the current one), so I know that A3 8P, A3 8V, A4/A5, Q5 or perhaps other Audi models have different plugs and pin-outs. I won't be surprised if Audi decided to use different airbag looms for cars with or without paddleshift.
1) Brown - Ground
2) Red - no idea what that is for
3) Violet - multifunction
So it is indeed missing a white cable - but what pin does the white cable go into for the Yellow plug? I will need to investigate this further. Hoping to get it to work still.
Yeah please let me know. I looked up all the part# from online Audi and they seem to match the equipment I have. The main thing is the airbag harness is not sold separately and all the airbag numbers are the same. After doing some research I'm pretty sure that the air bad harness is the issue. Doesn't have the tiptronic button wire. I took a close look at ebay for airbags from A3 post facelift and some have the wires while others do not.
However the post facelift no longer uses a white wire but instead a blue wire.
Just wondering where you got the wheel? Also what trim of A3 did you have?
I have the base model A3 Premium without digital dash, so that makes a difference. Thanks for your help. If you have VCDS if you can get your steering long code, and ECU model/revision # so I can cross check against mine, that would help greatly. I really want to get this to work. It is possible the ECU doesn't support it. If you have a Premium Plus or Prestige it may be the reason it works.
I have a 2017 quattro premium plus, normal dash, there were only 3 wires on the harness which means the paddle signals go through the same wire as the rest of the controls. I can look at the long code later.
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