We love the alcantara BMW Performance M3 steering wheel for the BMW M3 E90 (Sedan), E92 (Coupe), E93 (Convertible). The alcantara steering wheel offers much more grip than the stock leather steering wheel as well as a blue ring at the top dead center that’s race inspired. We love the way it feels and think it’s a great upgrade.
Today we’re going to cover the install of the steering wheel in a 2012 BMW M3 E92 with DCT. If your car is a 6MT (manual transmission) then you don’t need to worry about the shifter paddles and your install would be easier. It’s pretty straight forward and you can do it with simple hand tools. The only tool most people might not have would be an impact gun, which really comes in handy when you need to remove the factory nut that holds the stock wheel in place.
Above you can see the stock factory OEM steering wheel. We forgot to snap a picture of how we remove the center horn section – sorry about that! It’s pretty straight forward though. You need to get a small flathead screwdriver. On the left and right side of the steering wheel, you’ll see what looks like a soft spot in the side. If you push the flat head through there, you can feel some resistance… if you push against it, sort of like pushing against the side of an open paper clip, you can unlatch the horn section.
Above you can see the connectors that go to the air bag sensors. You need to remove these carefully from the stock air bag/horn section and you do this by gently prying up on the connectors until they pop off. Be careful, you don’t want to break these!
If your car has a DCT (Dual Clutch Transmission) then you will need to disconnect the left and right shifter paddles here. You need to remove the bolt holding them in as well as the sensor plugs.
Above you can see we have removed the steering wheel bolt in the center as well as unclipped the sensors. It’s pretty straight forward once you get to this point, just disconnect the sensors from the steering wheel brace.
At this point, it’s just all about reinstalling everything back the way it was once you transfer the DCT paddle shifters to the new steering wheel as well as any sensors.
Above, we have installed the new alcantara performance steering wheel. Make sure you mark the location of the old steering wheel, so when you pull it off, you can put the new one back in the same spot. This will prevent you from having to do any alignment after, or pulling the wheel off again because it’s crooked.
Once you get to this point, you need to put the horn/air bag section back into the new steering wheel and it should just pop into place.
Go take the car for a test drive and make sure the horn, paddles and buttons on the steering wheel work. Enjoy!
If you have any questions about this DIY or any questions about how to do yours, just ask below in the comments!
Is there a diy for a manual transmission one? Also don’t u need to disconnect the battery?
We didn’t disconnect the battery, and manual transmission would be the same thing except you don’t need to do the part with the paddles. A bit easier.
i dont see a soft spot on mines where i can remove the airbag. it’s a 2009 e92 dct m3. any idea?
Dear my330i 2009 convertible wheel steering dose not have paddle shift can i install paddle shift
So didn’t change steering wheel but had to remove wheel and reinstalled just how it was taken off and now nothing on the wheel works and airbag lights on. Can anyone shed some light please, really don’t want to spend extra money if not needed