Center horn retrofit for Model S

[terranx]

Tesla wouldn't let me keep my old airbag but I do have the old wheel. But really like the new one. It's time for them to address the dumb decision to eliminate the gear and turn signal selector at least on the S and X and see what happens. Sales is an issue for Tesla now so giving people extra excuses to not buy the car (no matter how amazing not having those features is to some people) doesn't work anymore.

Yeah I still think it is probably technically illegal for them to refuse to give you the old parts. If I was going to have them do it I would have just removed the airbag before handing over the car.

But at the end of the day I got a near new wheel off eBay for about $350. Even with the toolbox subscription (which I bought more to play around with), I’m well below the cost of having Tesla do it.

I’ll probably hunt around for the “correct” airbag so I can sell my old wheel / bag as a package. But otherwise I’m not concerned about the airbag deploying properly.

 

[dsm363]

Yeah I still think it is probably technically illegal for them to refuse to give you the old parts. If I was going to have them do it I would have just removed the airbag before handing over the car.

But at the end of the day I got a near new wheel off eBay for about $350. Even with the toolbox subscription (which I bought more to play around with), I’m well below the cost of having Tesla do it.

I’ll probably hunt around for the “correct” airbag so I can sell my old wheel / bag as a package. But otherwise I’m not concerned about the airbag deploying properly.

A mobile tech did the whole thing in my garage when I was away and didn't think it was worth the battle. Just happy to finally have it the way it should have been from the start but the price was a little absurd given it was their design issue and they lied about a software update to fix it.

 

[terranx]

For anyone in the Bay Area: 2024 Tesla ROUND steering wheel - auto parts - by owner - vehicle automotive sale - craigslist

No affiliation, just found while searching online.

 

[brooklyn]

damn - that's tempting. Are the X and S wheels the same part number? I dropped the $700 to switch my MSP Yoke to the round wheel. For this price would do it again to get a working horn.

 

[terranx]

damn - that's tempting. Are the X and S wheels the same part number? I dropped the $700 to switch my MSP Yoke to the round wheel. For this price would do it again to get a working horn.

Yep, same parts between S/X. The wheel I retrofitted in post 133 was from an X

 

[James Cole]

But how do you get it to work?

 

[brooklyn]

Thanks - sent that guy an email to see if he'll consider shipping it. And for any of you 2024 owners who'd rather have a Yoke and don't care about the mechanical horn, I've got a Yoke with airbag I'd love to offer up as a 1-for-1 trade!

 

[brooklyn]

But how do you get it to work?

Suspect I'd have to tee up a service appt for them to do the programming.

 

[terranx]

Suspect I'd have to tee up a service appt for them to do the programming.

Well as I noted in my post, you *can* do it with toolbox.

 

[Unclepaul]

When the mobile tech replaced my pealing yoke with the new updated one (under warranty) he hooked up his laptop to a plug inside the center console. Needed to change something to enable the new one to work with the center horn and new camera button. After that everything worked as designed. Service took about 30 minutes. Asked if I could keep the old yoke, and he said he was instructed to return it to service.
Latest yoke feels more solid and robust than the original. I have gotten used to the yoke and like the openness it gives to the cabin. Makes me feel like I am driving something unique and special. Have no objection to the traditional round wheel, but feel it would be a step backwards. The ultimate goal for the yoke will be it's combination with drive by wire steering, like in the CyberTruck.

 

[WilliamG]

When the mobile tech replaced my pealing yoke with the new updated one (under warranty) he hooked up his laptop to a plug inside the center console. Needed to change something to enable the new one to work with the center horn and new camera button. After that everything worked as designed. Service took about 30 minutes. Asked if I could keep the old yoke, and he said he was instructed to return it to service.
Latest yoke feels more solid and robust than the original. I have gotten used to the yoke and like the openness it gives to the cabin. Makes me feel like I am driving something unique and special. Have no objection to the traditional round wheel, but feel it would be a step backwards. The ultimate goal for the yoke will be it's combination with drive by wire steering, like in the CyberTruck.

If the yoke had steer by wire, it would be a step forward, as you'd have the excellent dash and windshield visibility of the yoke, and none of the downsides there currently are. Unfortunately, I'm stuck with the yoke since being so tall the steering wheel retrofit really blocks a portion of the driver's display. But if that weren't the case, steering wheel all the way. You simply have more control, are able to let the wheel slip through fingers when releasing it after a tight turn, and three-point turns/maneuvering is much easier - doesn't leave you grasping at air.

The funny thing is that I've found the best way of describing the whole yoke vs wheel argument is this: The yoke is excellent some of the time, - even most of the time, depending where you live. But there are occasions, - how many will depend where you live and what you deal with on a daily basis - where the yoke is not ideal. Whether the yoke is good 80% of the time or 99% of the time, it's not 100%. The steering wheel is good all the time. I can't think of a single time I've driven a car with a steering wheel through the decades where I've been like... oh darn... this steering wheel really gets in the way of my driving successfully and smoothly.

Anyway, - yes the new yoke material is obviously different from the old yoke material. We'll see how well it holds up over time, but it's an improvement immediately noticeable.

 

[Awesombekker]

So the mechanical horn wheel I got off ebay came in today. Changed the gateway config. Reused my original airbag. All seems to work appropriately.

Before:
View attachment 1038778


After:
View attachment 1038779

Couple notes:

• The official Yoke/Wheel swap routine within toolbox does not work with the public toolbox (it errors out as an unauthorized change at the end). However you can accomplish the same end result by editing the gateway config via service shell which does work with public toolbox (for now).
• If you change the gateway configuration before changing the steering wheel, the old horn button acts like a camera button. The car will also throw an error complaining about not having a horn. But otherwise still perfectly drivable, other buttons work normally. Error goes away after swapping the new wheel in
• Most of the youtube videos say you don't need to disconnect LV power while replacing the wheel or replace the center steering wheel bolt. Tesla says to do both. I figured it's easy to disconnect power and the bolt is cheap, so I did both.
• Tesla says the new airbag isn't compatible with the new wheel. I am pretty confident that the only difference is the embossed horn symbol, however I cannot prove that. If you want to be 100% safe, you should replace the airbag as recommended by Tesla.

Relevant gateway configuration items below

configid:
114 (cfg_steeringheatertype)
data:
04 (ZF_ROUND)
05 (ZF_YOKE)

configid:
121 (cfg_steeringwheeltype)
data:
00 (ROUND)
01 (YOKE)
02 (YOKE_HORN_IN_DAB) -- Never used. presumably they were planning on horn within the airbag itself, and this might have been what Elon's infamous tweet was referring to about all cars having the hardware
03 (YOKE_MECHANICAL_HORN)
04 (ROUND_MECHANICAL_HORN)

I just received my yoke steering wheel today and I currently have 2024.3.15 queued up (not installed yet). Do you think by installing the yoke, then performing the 2024.3.15 update, it will automatically detect the new hardware and edit the config accordingly? I was thinking that this may be similar to installing the Homelink hardware on the Model 3/Y a few years ago.

 

[terranx]

I just received my yoke steering wheel today and I currently have 2024.3.15 queued up (not installed yet). Do you think by installing the yoke, then performing the 2024.3.15 update, it will automatically detect the new hardware and edit the config accordingly? I was thinking that this may be similar to installing the Homelink hardware on the Model 3/Y a few years ago.

No, you need to do the config update for it to recognize it.