Disassemble Steering Wheel for Cleaning

just looked in the ESM and there is about 10 pages dealing with the air bag and the safty procedures for taking it off the car alone. What I'd do is if coffee glued it up warm water should undo it. Wrap a towl around the wheel and slowly pour warm water on that area and then dry it off, wait and see if that has an effect. In the ESM that I have its section 50 of the listing.

 

Oh, for god's sake. Pour water into it?

Take it to a dealer and get the switch assembly replaced, and call it a cheap lesson in caution. (Hint: if you never drink coffee in the car, coffee will never spill into your steering wheel electronics.)

 

there aren't any more technical terms than those... :lol:

we're with everyone else on this one. while disabling the airbag isn't that hard if you've done it lots of times, if you're not comfortable with it have someone else do it.

the dealer might want to replace the switch, then again maybe you can talk them into pulling it out for you so you can clean it... if you're real convincing. he says if someone came in to him to do it, he'd ask to have the car all day (time to pull it, wash it, and let it dry completely) and charge an hour. if it was a serious pain in the tail he'd charge an hour and a half. depends who you go to, i guess. that kind of stuff is discretionary.

 

hell you poured coffee in it and gummed it up and the car didn't explode or catch fire our short out. What will dissolve coffee? warm water. What have you got to loose. Nothing but a bit of time. If it works, fine if it dosen't it's dealer time. I'd put money on it that it'll come clean with warm water.

 

have to agree with Frank. the moisture didnt hurt it the first time, probably won t the 2nd time. most of those connects are sealed switches anyway.

 

Instead of water try pouring rubbing alcohol, it will evaporate completely and quickly.

 

if you think that water will somehow damage it realize that Toyota uses the same switch design on a Solara ragtop and they have take into consideration that I'll problaby sit at least a couple of times out in a rain shower with the top down. And it'll have to survive that with out being taken back to the dealer.

 

Yeah, it will evaporate real good, but first it may dissolve the finish on the wheel, or the switch membrane, or other plastic parts inside the wheel. Why risk it?

 

Me too, but I don't take such drugs while driving.

 

I would just go to Toyota and tell them what you did. Maybe you will get lucky and the service manger will write it up for repair, and not charge you.

 

While warm water many seem shocking for cleaning electronics, it's really not. It's standard procedure.

Our I.T. department "rinses" a few notebook computers each year due to beverage mishaps, then lets them sit in a warm area to dry out. However, they use warm de-ionized water. That is water that has been filtered of all minerals. Like what you used in high-school chemistry.

When it evaporates, it leaves nothing behind.

Regular tap water will leave all its impurities behind, which may interfere with electrical contacts.

 

well we use the top rack of a dishwasher on the power saver feature to wash keyboards...would have mentioned that if i could have figured out how to get the Prius in a dishwasher

 

The other trick is in rinsing away all of the stuff in such a way that it is not re-deposited somewhere else. Relatively easy to do with small equipment, harder to do with a steering wheel unless it is removed first.