Converting to Heated Steering Wheel Questions

Hello, I am looking at this steering wheel due to mine becoming worn out. My truck currently does not have a heated steering wheel but it is an option to add a heating element to the wheel on the website. I was wondering if any of you guys and gals know if there is any way I could add the heating system to it. Thanks!

https://ttdcraft.us/collections/tac...2007-highlander-carbon-fiber-steering-wheel-4

 

I looked into this many years ago. There are several pages on here (TW)about doing this conversion. It is not an easy one and after doing heated mirrors I bowed out. Just the thought of messing with the clockspring had me. Here is one page to consider: Heated Steering Wheel Mod | Tacoma World Good luck!

 

Cartrimhome sells a kit for '12+ Tacomas: https://cartrimhome.com/Heated-Steering-Wheel-Perforated-Leather-Toyota-4runner

I don't know to what extent the '12+ clock spring in the kit is plug & play with your '11. May need to repin connectors.

The TTD Craft listing is suspicious because the '05-'11 Tacoma and '03-'09 4Runner steering wheels have different castings, not compatible with each other.

 

Rather than buy a generic after market wheel why not get another oe wheel and heat tape then re wrap it? Or better yet, tape and refurbish your existing wheel. I’d rather not fuck with aftermarket clock springs. Run the heat tape to a switch blank in the dash, put it on a constant switch or timer like the heated mirror mod and be done with it.

No hacking or modding of clock springs needed.

 

^If you aren't going through the clock spring, the heating element would need to be removed or unplugged before driving?

 

I wouldn’t think so but idk? Are you thinking the cable would bind up with steering wheel rotation? I’m thinking along the line of heated grips for sleds. 3 position low, off, high, rocker switch in a blank next to the wheel. Run independent power to your fuse block/bus bar/whatever, tie into acc so if you leave it on high or low it turns off with the key. Power from the tape utilizes the same run through the wheel into the dash as the spiral cable.

 

The clock spring is the cable that allows your steering wheel to turn and still have electric connections work

 

I understand that. Didn’t know if it would be possible to run enough slack to make up for 2/3 turns of wheel rotation without binding. Sounds like that not possible.

Disregard.

 

I'm not completely out of the idea of just swapping to a 12+ column, even if that means I need to do some wiring, the only reason I didn't want to wrap my steering wheel in heat wrap is due to the steering wheel being too bulky for my liking, I really like the thickness of the steering wheel and think any more over top of it would drive me crazy. I have already started brainstorming how I could use one of those DIY heat wrap kits to make my shift knob heated as well, from the looks of it there is a rubber piece and an inner plastic piece, if I could remove the rubber from the plastic I could wrap it, put it back together and use the same 12v system with switch to do it, I might be too ambitious but you dont know until you try right?