JDM Prius Steering Wheel

Per message from tenso.com earlier today

Thank you for using Tenso.com.

Your parcel has arrived at our storehouse. Please review your package information and make a payment on "my page" at Tenso.com in order to begin the shipping process.

Upon completion of $78 shipping charge via PayPal

We have received your payment and are now preparing to ship your package. You will receive a confirmation email as soon as the shipment procedure is complete

To be continued

 

Ta-da...I'm looking at brand spanking new steering wheel. It was delivered within 4 business days from Japan. Now I need to swap the old one with the new shining beauty. Actually, the "old one" is just two months old anyway so it is all relative. I will post once I replace it...not sure if I want to do it myself...it looks fairly straightforward though.

 

I bought a misty grey leather wheel from an ebay seller in Japan. It's a Toyota part, and it's a very, very nice wheel. The price was about $200 cheaper than buying from a Toyota dealer in the US (but nowhere near as cheap if you can ship to a local address in Japan first).

Having swapped steering wheels before, I didn't think I'd be able to just yank the wheel off without a puller. However, I did give it the ole college try, and the crappy wheel in my II just started to flex and bend. The steering wheel puller at AutoZone worked beautifully (Part No 27017). You pay $20 to rent, and they refund when you return the tool.

I absolutely love the result!

 

I was in LA over the week-end and stopped by Tommy's garage to replace stock steering wheel with the JDM version. It around 30-40 mins in total. The new wheel looks more lux. The wooden parts of the wheel have a cool feel to the touch when not in the direct sunlight.

The only concern that i have right now (hopefully it is just me) is that when we replaced it, the new wheel was a bit uneven gauging to the right while I was driving straight. Yes, Tommy marked the spot prior to removing the stock wheel. I returned to the garage after I did a mini test drive and we adjusted position of the new wheel by moving it a notch to the left thinking it would be even now. Well, now I have slight turn to left side actually. It makes me think that I need to do alignment to fix that. 5,000 mile service is coming up soon. I might do it then.

 

Curious - does anyone know what size the nut is that holds the steering wheel in place?

 

Oh man I want that sooo bad....

 

FYI - it seems to be a 19mm socket. The one that's missing from my drawer of course!

ALSO NOTE: To anyone swapping a steering wheel... If you shut the rear hatch at all (even gently setting it down, as I did) you cannot open it again until the battery is connected. :rant: That means folding down the rear seats, moving everything out of the way, and army-crawling back there to reconnect the battery. In the rain. So that's my plan for the afternoon...

After reconnecting the stock wheel, so that I can drive down to Lowes to pick up a 19mm socket of course... Lather, rinse, repeat.

 

looks so good!! nice mod!

 

That is just too funny! But thanks for the advise as this is a mod I am looking forward to.

Cheers!

 

No worries, now that the struggle is behind me, all is well enough. One other thing to note - elsewhere in this thread someone mentioned that after installing a new wheel, it seemed slightly off-center. This happened to me as well, and it isn't because we didn't center the splined hub first.

The way the prius wheel is made, the splined insert is pressed (or molded?) into the steering wheel frame at random. There are so many splines (I think 31, or something like that) that there isn't a "correct" top center point on it. During final assembly & alignment, the car is adjusted so that the steering wheel is perfectly straight.

This means that any replacement steering wheel might happen to have the splines in the perfect position, but there's no guarantee, and it isn't hugely likely. So after the install, it you're a luck winner, it'll be perfectly straight after the swap, but it is very possible to be off by a few degrees - even though the wheel was installed correctly. You can't necessarily force it on straight, because the splines dictate where it can sit on the hub - you can only put it in the "straightest" position available.

Thus mine is a hair off to the right. I'm honestly not sure if there's a way the dealer can reset the zero position of the wheel without a full alignment. (Since the steering is entirely electronic, there must be...) Perhaps someone else here knows?

 

Yep, same here... a few, carefully balanced bumps and off it came. Not once, not twice, but three times as I removed, replaced, adjusted, replaced, etc.

Seems as though you can have it slightly to the left or slightly to the right... but not "slightly in the middle." Let's see, say 30 splines into 360º, that's 12º cada uno... quite a swing!

I've toyed with the idea of compensating, equal turns on the tie-rods... but haven't gotten up the chutzpah to see if it even has tie rods

 

After reconnecting the battery, did you have to re-set anything on the car (stereo settings, clock, lock settings, etc)?

 

This may be going on my Christmas Wish list, gorgeous wheel, ughhhhh....I WANT!

 

Where can I get the jdm steering wheel or the tom's wheel....?

I saw it on ebay, but its over $500. ... ouch!

 

OK, I copied Elric to get one of these wheels. I used his link to the Rakuten website and bought the wheel for $167 plus tax, $173 total. I used an AMEX card so I'll probably get charged another $5 for foreign fees. I also used Tenso as the shipping agent. However, it sure looked like maybe the vendor at Rakuten (Samurai Produce) may have shipped to the US, but I didn't want to chance it. The Rakuten site specifically says that you need a shipping agent. Either way, the shipping agent, Tenso seems easy to use. They charge you $17 for the fee plus whatever the shipping charges are. The shipping for Elric was only $78 to San Mateo, should be similar to the Phoenix area. So for a total of $273 I'll have a great looking steering wheel. I have pulled a lot of steering wheels in the past including ones with airbags, so I will do my own work.

Thanks to everyone on this forum for the great advice. I'll keep everyone posted on my progress.

 

I noticed the same thing regarding Samurai Produce - it looks like they ship all over the world. Please keep us posted on how things go with Tenso.

 

Glen...

Let me know which wheel you got. Do you have a link to the wheel or the website ??? I am very interested in this.

Thanks,

Kevin

 

I'll keep you guys posted. I'm betting that Samurai would have shipped to US, but wasn't willing to be the guinea pig. Here's the link from Elric, it's the same link I used:

http://en.item.rakuten.com/samuraipr..._steering_126/

 

This is pretty quick. I just got the email from Tenso, they have the steering wheel and will be shipping it out. I paid them $73 using Paypal. I hope to have the wheel in a week or so.

 

Just an update on my steering wheel. It came today, I'll be putting it on after work today. The box that it came in was in pretty sad shape, but luckily they wrap a nice foam cover over the wood rim parts and pack the whole wheel in a very nice bubble wrap sleeve. The wheel looks great. I'm looking forward to using it.

A big thanks to Elric. His instructions on how to buy the wheel from Rakuten and then using Tenso to ship it worked perfectly.

I'll post photos later.

By the way, total cost with tax, shipping, and fees was just $246 and it took only 12 days from order date to receipt.