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looking to see if anyone has a wiring diagram for the steering wheel controls. ive searched and the only thing that comes up is the wires under the dash that run up the column. these arent the same color behind the air bag. what im doing is putting leds into the controls and need to find my pos/neg for the lights and decide where to work in the resistors for them. ive got a spare set of controls and the harness that runs between them so im trying to do this first so i can just swap them out. i pinned it out with a meter and it seems to be the red and blue wires but i want to make sure before i solder everything in. thanks
wires going into the back of the controls -
left:
red
blue
tan
black
You have apparently gone too far into the switches. There are only four wires involved in the remote audio control switches (steering wheel switches). The switch control has power input on the yellow wire and output to the radio on the dark blue wire. Each switch has an associated resistor and the head unit determines which switch is pressed by the total resistance in the circuit. The switch illumination gets power through the gray/black wire and ground on the black wire - those are the only wires you need to work with for your LEDs.
what is on ebay is what i have right in front of me, same harness and all. pulled it out of my buddies car so i know it works. so what you posted doesnt match to what i have. i can take a picture of the board with the wires to prove the colors if you would like.
i did that and came up with red and blue, was just trying to determine which was pos/neg. that diagram only colorcodes the wires going up the column, not whats behind the steering wheel.
did you ever figure this out? Im trying to make a 12V to 5 V conversion, has anybody figured it out
What is it you are trying to accomplish? Using the switches for something other than the stereo system?
The yellow wire has the steering wheel switch power feed - nominally 13.8 volts but varies from about 14.1V down to 12V or less depending on whether the engine is running and the condition of the battery. The dark blue wire has reduced voltage output (relative to the power feed) to the head unit only when one of the switches is pressed. The amount of voltage reduction is based on the resistor connected to each switch (series circuit... current remains constant, voltage varies with resistance).
personally (sorry for the hijack) Im trying to accomplish hooking up an android head unit that uses 2 KEY wires, one sends 5 volts to the controls and the other KEY wire hooks into the dark blue input that goes into the headunit, Im having difficulty locating the yellow wire thats not the airbag,but for the actual controls thanks for the great info btw
So you want a 5V reference wire to the Android HU as well as to the steering wheel control input (yellow wire) and the control output (dark blue wire) to the Android HU which will then calculate which button is pressed by the voltage drop between the reference and the output?
You'll find the yellow wire at the base of the steering column near the ignition switch (the switch itself not the key cylinder). It is a 4-pin connector with yellow, grey/black, dark blue, and black wires in that order across.
Whitebird you are exactly right, holy crap when I scroll through the forums and I see a Whitebird comment I stop what Im doing and read, because I always learn invaluable information and for that I thank you.
So, I found the plug and one side goes directly into the steering column with a wrap around it, and the other side is practically untraceable as it seems to go into the BCM (considering deciphering the previous owners horrible wiring and the rat nest they left behind I am forced to correct) I am assuming to attach the 5V Key 1 into the the wrapped end near my finger correct?
Actually, none of those wires goes to the BCM. The yellow wire comes from the fuse panel fuse #3 (1A) to feed 12V power to the controls. The dark blue wire is the output that goes to the back of the head unit. The other two wires you can ignore because they're just power and ground for the switch illumination (from fuse #13 and to ground G200 stud at left kick panel respectively).
It doesn't matter which side of the connector you cut the yellow wire but for convenience I would use the dash side rather than the wrapped steering column side. You'll have to cut the yellow wire and provide some sort of 5V feed to replace the stock 12V feed. The easiest way might be to get a 12V-5V converter for less than $10 from Amazon, use the 12V feed on the end of the yellow wire from the fuse panel as the converter's input and connect the 5V output to the end of the yellow wire going to the steering column as well as to your 5V reference on the Android device.
So Im back in town messing with this, I did as some other guy did and talked to tech support about it and I think my clock spring is tore, then again there is a small connector with a white/yellow wire i believe coming from the steering wheel that has been clipped, damn it.....both the airbags are good ....but the SRS light is on.....guess its time to start digging
02-23-2013, 08:11 PM
Steering wheel control wires 
