Wrapped the inside of my steering wheel matte white

[TLLMRRJ]

I have been seeing some nice modified steering wheels, and was thinking some of them look pretty good, but didn't feel like spending the big bucks on a fully reworked wheel. So I bought some 3M matte white wrap on Amazon for $15 to DIY wrap the inside of the wheel myself to spice it up a little.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00HVEPTZ4/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I don't like the area around the steering wheel buttons being white. From what I have seen, it looks cheesy wrap those pieces, so I left them alone. The white accent is just right.

Here's how to take off the wheel:

Here's how to disassemble it:

And the wrapping is an arts and crafts project that you can use the extra wrap to try again if you mess up. If you haven't worked with this type of wrap, make sure you use some heat from a hairdryer to get better stretch around the corners and curves.

I really like it with the white console. I won't do anything else to the interior, or it will look overbaked.

 

[cypho]

Wow that looks amazing!

 

[TLLMRRJ]

Wow that looks amazing!

Thanks! For $15 and some quality time watching TV while I wrapped the trim piece, I am happy with the results.

Now, I don't feel the need to spend $1K or more on a custom wheel. And since it's a wrap, I can easily remove it, if needed. Since your hands don't touch that area of the wheel, the wrap won't wear, but if you wanted to spray paint the trim piece, it would be easy to do that too.

 

[hydro 481]

I have been seeing some nice modified steering wheels, and was thinking some of them look pretty good, but didn't feel like spending the big bucks on a fully reworked wheel. So I bought some 3M matte white wrap on Amazon for $15 to DIY wrap the inside of the wheel myself to spice it up a little.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00HVEPTZ4/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I don't like the area around the steering wheel buttons being white. From what I have seen, it looks cheesy wrap those pieces, so I left them alone. The white accent is just right.

Here's how to take off the wheel:

Here's how to disassemble it:

And the wrapping is an arts and crafts project that you can use the extra wrap to try again if you mess up. If you haven't worked with this type of wrap, make sure you use some heat from a hairdryer to get better stretch around the corners and curves.

I really like it with the white console. I won't do anything else to the interior, or it will look overbaked.

View attachment 509151 View attachment 509152 View attachment 509153 View attachment 509154 View attachment 509155 View attachment 509156 View attachment 509157

Nice work. I’ve seen this before on another steering and really liked it.

 

[Adam3]

Love it

 

[TomaGo]

I like, it ! Good Job.

 

[Steshen]

That's absolutely gorgeous, saw it on youtube during my Model3 quest but cannot find it later when I finally receive the car.

Thanks for the inputs! Time to get that 3m .

 

[jkoya]

Nice - very impressive work there !!!

 

[SMAlset]

I read the title and thought “I don’t know about this” but after seeing your photos have to say nice job and looks good! You covered areas that I don’t think would get much handling which is ideal (I always think about maintenance too).

 

[TLLMRRJ]

I read the title and thought “I don’t know about this” but after seeing your photos have to say nice job and looks good! You covered areas that I don’t think would get much handling which is ideal (I always think about maintenance too).

I was worried about how it would look, so before I took off the steering wheel, I used some of the wrap (that $15 roll on Amazon will easily do 3 steering wheels) to do a rough mockup of the white to show to family members to get their opinion. It was an immediate go from them.

The wrap on the steering wheel definitely gets a lot less touches than the center console, and that seems to hold up well. Worst case scenario, it's not hard to take the steering wheel off to redo if something did happen, especially since it would be super easy after having already done it before.

Here's a day time shot.

 

[Need]

I looked at the title of the thread and thought... people here really have too much time on their hands. Then I looked at the pics and damn it looks good LOL. Nice job!

 

[WilliamG]

That looks great. My only concern would be in the summer with the sun beating down hard on it. Be interesting to see how it holds up. Either way, awesome job. It looks great.

 

[TLLMRRJ]

That looks great. My only concern would be in the summer with the sun beating down hard on it. Be interesting to see how it holds up. Either way, awesome job. It looks great.

Being here in Texas, I am used to using a windshield shade every time I park during the summer time. But this wrap is the same stuff that is used on the exterior of cars in all weather conditions so it should hold up being on the interior and being white not having any color to fade. And it's the same stuff that people are putting on their center consoles.

If I need to redo it every 4-5 years, that's not a big deal. Plus I'll probably be tempted to upgrade to something new from Tesla before this wrap wears out.

 

[LowBattery]

This looks fantastic! Thanks for sharing this project.

Doing the wrap on that lower portion as a single piece looks difficult due to the many angles. Do you have any tips you could share about how to cut appropriately? Do you recommend anything in addition to an X-acto blade?

 

[TLLMRRJ]

This looks fantastic! Thanks for sharing this project.

Doing the wrap on that lower portion as a single piece looks difficult due to the many angles. Do you have any tips you could share about how to cut appropriately? Do you recommend anything in addition to an X-acto blade?

It's all about the hair dryer. Once you heat the material, it becomes like putty to get around corners and shapes. For the lower portion, just lay the piece down flat and then cut with a large margin a big V shape matching the shape of the steering wheel trim piece (like I show in the pic above). Then starting from the bottom if the V work your way around and trim as you go to have less excess material, but enough to wrap around the edges.

It's a bit slow and tedious of an arts and crafts project, which is why I was watching TV while doing it. If you mess up, there's a lot of extra wrap in that $15 kit to try multiple times. An Xacto, scissors and hair dryer is all you need.

 

[JasontheBeaver]

I see TONS of awful DIY interior modifications... and this aint one of them.
Great job!

 

[Chasis]

looks great! flows real well with the interior. Nice job!

 

[TwoK4drSi]

DOPE AF! Imma try to do it this next week

 

[Sclew]

Awesome. @Nikola Pro is this something you can make pre-cut without taking the steering wheel off?

 

[TLLMRRJ]

Awesome. @Nikola Pro is this something you can make pre-cut without taking the steering wheel off?

I started off by asking a vendor if they could make a precut kit so I could do it without disassembling the steering wheel.

They said it would be very hard to get a good result, and after doing a mock up without taking the wheel off and then taking the wheel off, I would agree.

It would be especially hard around the contours of the lower piece, and then around the curves to the sides.

Instead of precut, you’d do better to try with bulk film and then trim it carefully. However, with the effort required to do the work with the wheel on and the lesser results, I think you would regret not taking the wheel off.

Wrapped off the car, the results look factory and like the piece is molded in white like the dash cap. No one could tell its a wrap.