Flip volume and track fwd/reverse toggle on steering wheel

Oh crap, they are a one wire output?

Dude, that is absolute BS if you ask me. If you are capable of remaking the design to how the members want it, then I think you would be the 3rd gen savior.

 

Just like when we say roll the window up/ down. Or when we wanted people to "roll" their windows downs we would motion cranking a circle ... no one knows what that even means now days

 

When I replaced my headunit, with an android one. I reprogrammed the buttons as you mention.

 

All the buttons from the steering wheel are done through 2 wires, (1 left side 1 right side), Each button has a different resistor value connected to it and a common ground. So you simply test the resistance at the other end of the wire to tell which button has been pressed. It’s a standard analog circuit, Most manufacturers do steering wheel controls like this. Not sure exactly why, maybe to reduce the number of wires running through the steering wheel column?

 

It’s fine the way it is for me! If you increase the volume with the radio knob you crank it to the right, if you lower the volume you crank it to the left. My wife’s Prius C has the controls on the steering wheel the opposite way and it drives me nuts every time I drive her car!

 

If each button has a different resistance value and you don't want to wait for a new alternative solution swap out SMDs on the board. I've done it before to great success and since you just want to change buttons around it would theoretically be as simple as remove and replace with the one next to it.

 

i haven’t looked at the circuit board on the steering wheel controls, so have no idea how easy that would be. But it would be simply to design a circuit that would change the resistance, then just place said circuit on the head unit input. Buttons would have wrong labels, but you could easily change what they actually did. I have all the resistance/ voltage information if anyone wants it, I decoded it all for a different project.

 

Not really. A lot of manufactures do it this way. It's how all the cars I've had steering wheel controls for do it.


Also happy it's on the left side and not the right. Which I think gm used to do at least.

 

Technically when you turn a volume knob you turn it to the right to increase the volume. And I'm thinking knob was way before button control. And that 'volume up' was already around. So who was actually wrong? Those in the past who had a knob that they turned and called it up?

 

Well technically you don't turn a knob right or left, you turn it clockwise or counterclockwise. The top of the knob moves right, the bottom moves left, the sides move up and down. It's a madhouse.

Toyota has been doing things differently over the years and it can be a bit frustrating. My Lexus does not have navigation and so has what I would consider a pretty "classic" track/preset selection setup. The head unit has radio presets 1-2-3-4-5-6 on it, and you move through them with a left/right switch. Songs on bluetooth/CD's, etc., are left for back, right for forward.

My girlfriend's RX on the other hand has navigation and the steering wheel controls are up/down instead. The radio presets are listed on the display from 1-6 vertically, so now instead of "up" being the next preset, you use "down" to move down the list. It's different so it takes a bit of getting used to, but whatever. The tricky part is that when you are playing media, "up" is the next song and "down" is the last song. Throws me off every time.

I prefer my non-nav, non-display setup for its intuitive steering wheel controls and the fact that while it's not "modern" it also does not age the same way nav/Entune/etc. does. Sure mine looked a bit older when I got the car, and it still does, but take a look at the nav system from the same time period, it's way worse.

 

Hi everyone, was there ever a fix for this? just got me a '21 off road and it's annoying the crap out of me! I was hoping that I could just rotate the knob but I guess that wouldn't solve the issue.

 

Unfortunately the only way to fix this would be to get a new radio. Since the buttons can’t be reconfigured on the steering wheel(they are all on a circuit board.) to the stock radio. It’s not as easy to just “move some buttons around”. However, if you install an aftermarket radio it has a steering wheel input that can be reprogrammed to the users liking. So in this case when programming you would just hit “VOL” instead of “TRACK”. Although the image on the button itself wouldn’t’m change, you would just have to remember the layout.

 

I haven’t seen the pcb but I imagine it might be possible to cut traces and jumper the connections to interchange some or all of the momentary switches. If it’s a simple pcb it might be done as an Oshpark board. Does anyone have pictures of said pcb?

 

Is it possible for you to make a thin overlay cover piece with the ‘correct’ position of the symbols? I’m sure there’s a lot of aftermarket hu owners out there.

 

It’s the functions that are out of place. Doesn’t matter what the symbol is.

 

Yes, for stock radio. With aftermarket headunit you can reprogram the buttons. So it would be nice if the symbols were on the correct spot after we reprogram the buttons.

 

I’m sure printing it isn’t a problem but getting the laser etched images might be.

 

I got used to mine after about a year

 

Normally I turn the dial to the right to turn up the volume, so right left for volume makes more sense to me than up/down.

I don't have an ipod and the volume knob on the radio goes right and left just fine.

I don't get why this is such a big deal to someone, must be one of those millennials.

 

Arguments can be made either way about the volume. Up/down or right/left could both make sense. Up/down makes more sense to me, because you wouldn't ask someone to turn their music left or right. But volume bars on TVs do often display horizontally, so it's not completely unnatural.

The problem, though, is that next/previous, or FF/rewind, are almost universally right/left actions... look up the icons for those. So most people wouldn't expect hitting "up" to go to the *next* item, *down* a list.