Hello everyone! Has anyone else been having this same issue with the heated steering wheel? First time I have had a car do this to me. Starting to look pretty ugly.
An unintended consequence of a heated steering wheel apparently that heat destroys the "pleather" that Toyota uses called Softex..
The seat heaters apparently spread the heat over a larger surface area than on the steering wheel. Engineers call it the principle of unintended consequences. Vinyl's start to soften at about 180 degrees Fahrenheit and droop at about 300. Natural materials like leather are a lot more heat resistant up to 400 and slightly beyond.
Is this the same issue I have been seeing on PC on peeling steering wheels? Are they specific to "heated" steering wheels? Mine does not have heated steering wheel and peeling... at least NOT YET.
At 20,000 miles and about 1 1/4 northern Wi winters I do not see any damage of this kind on my steering wheel. I use the heated steering wheel a lot, every day this time of year probably through most of March. Thanks for pointing it out, will keep an eye on it.
I do have almost 60k miles, but I have owned around 10 cars and a couple with more miles than that and never had this degraded steering wheel issue. Do not know if it’s only affecting the heated steering wheels, but that’s what I am working with.
There's been at least one other thread on this, and the common denominator was 4th Gen with artificial leather, not necessarily heated.
