Turned my non sport airbag into a sport airbag

[roadkillrob]

So I had always wondered if it could be done in my 3 series, ended up trying it with the X5. Have a non sport wheel and swapped it for a sport wheel in my 2011 X5, purchased an airbag cover from ebay for $100 and removed the old non sport cover and replaced it.

It is a pain in the ass to work the 15 or so clips loose that hold the cover on, but once you get it started, it took me about 15 minutes, new cover slides right on and clips in.

Quite a bit cheaper than purchasing a new airbag and is reversible if you needed to put it back.

Wish I had taken pictures, but I just started taking a look at how I would go about it and kinda got into it before I thought about the camera.

[dhirm5]

so now you just have to hope it works when you need it...

[roadkillrob]

Originally Posted by alokdhir

so now you just have to hope it works when you need it...

I am reasonably, the airbag is a contained unit under the cover, so the chance of failure mostly would come down to not fully clipping the cover into place, which would result in the airbag still deploying after firing the cover off the steering wheel, but I triple checked all the clips!

[smallseafishie]

so did you replace the wheel or just the cover?

Can you take a picture of the final result?

Thanks!

[roadkillrob]

Originally Posted by smallseafishie

so did you replace the wheel or just the cover?

Can you take a picture of the final result?

Thanks!

I replaced the standard steering wheel with the sport wheel and then replaced the standard airbag cover with the sport one (saves buying the sport airbag in it's entirety)

[smallseafishie]

Do you mind being a little more specific in what you did? I just ordered a msport wheel so I'll be in a similar boat as you were.

Thanks!