How to Remove Steering Wheel 2010-14 Subaru Outback

Hey friends, it's Len here at 1A Auto. Today I'm working on a 2013 Subaru Outback. I'm going to be removing the steering wheel. I want to show you how to do it. If you need any parts you can always check us out at 1AAuto.com. Thanks.

Okay, so one of the first things you want to do is you want to make sure that your steering wheel is going straight. So the way that we're going to do that is we're going to start the vehicle, we're going to go forward a couple of feet, make sure the steering wheel's straight, we're going to reverse a couple of feet, still making sure the vehicle is straight, then we're going to park it, make sure the steering wheel's straight, turn off the key, and then we'll proceed to our next step.

All right. The steering wheel's pretty straight. Okay. So we know the wheels are straight, the steering wheel's straight, keys out. We'll set that aside, emergency brake's on. All right. We'll move to the next step and that's disconnecting the negative battery terminal. Be careful for your steering wheel.

We're going to remove the negative battery terminal. To do that I'm using a ten millimeter. The reason why I'm removing the negative and not the positive is because if I was doing this with the positive and I touched it on something metal it would arc out and it could cause issues for my computer and the car and/or cause arcing and sparking. So I'm just going to set that aside. This is disconnected. Now we're going to wait two minutes before we proceed to the next procedure.

Okay, so along the side of your steering wheel you've got a hole right here. You've got a hole on the exact opposite side of the steering wheel over on the passenger side of it and then directly under the center you have a very similar hole. Inside those holes there's these little almost like a clip that holds your horn pad in. We need to get our little tool up inside there, move those clips out of the way so it releases the horn pad from the vehicle. We've already disconnected the battery. We know we did that. If you have not disconnected the battery, you need to go back and disconnect the battery and wait two full minutes. So I'm gong to continue. I'm going to grab my pick. I'm going to get under here and I'm going to see if I can get this clip undone.

Okay, so what we're going to do is we're going to put the key in the ignition just to the point that we can turn the wheel. Right now it's in the locked position. Okay, now it's unlocked. I can see the hole right here. Inside this hole there's a little clip. So I'm going to try to find that clip, release the clip and pull out on this and then I'm going to do the same to the lower hole and then the one that's on the complete opposite side of the steering wheel. I'm going to release the horn pad. I'm not going to pull it out very far. I just want it to be released at that point and then we'll move on to the next step.

Okay. I got one. Okay. There we are. Okay. I've got this loose. I'm just going to set it back in. Just like that. Get my steering wheel as close to straight as I can. Okay. Okay. So we've got our horn pad here, airbag and everything. I just want to show you what we are dealing with when we were coming up through the holes on the sides. We were dealing with these clips right here and what you have to do is you have to get your tool in and see the tip of it right there and then just kind of pry this over and then when you pry that over, it releases this right here. Well, obviously it would be that side, but this is closer to me. So, any way, it releases this right here and you've got to do that for all three. That little clip just goes around this and holds it in. So, it's real difficult to get into especially when you can't see but that's essentially what you need to do. Go in through the hole, put your little pick in there and then just slide that right off to the side. I'd say easy-peasy but not so much.

Okay, this has been disconnected for several minutes now. What we want to do is we want to grab this little yellow thing, just try to pull it up, just like that, and you're just going to grab it, lift it right out. The orange wire goes to the orange. We'll do the same to the black. Go right under the yellow, lift up on that, grab it, lift it. Easy-peasy. To disconnect this, we're just going to grab right here. I'm just going to try pull this off, hopefully. There we are. All right. Let's move along to the next step.

Okay. So I'm just going to use a marker at this point. I'm going to mark the shaft and the steering wheel itself. All right? Like that, straight up and down. Just try to line up these lines as straight as possible and this is just so hopefully I have the best chance possible of getting my steering wheel back on straight. Just do the best you can. Take your time. If for some reason you do something and you wipe off your marks, you're going to be hurting. So just do it right the first time. There we are. That should be pretty visible for a while. Now I'm going to take off this center nut right here and we'll move on to the next step.

Okay, we're going to use our 17 millimeter socket and we're going to remove this. You can use a ratchet, you can use an airgun, whatever you want do. Just try to hold your steering wheel, give it a loving bonk. Take that nut right out of here. We'll set this aside. Okay, generally speaking on most imports you can take your steering wheel you can give it a little shake and it should want to slide off. Once it starts sliding off, we're going to stop at that point. Just wiggle it. Yep, there we are. Okay. So we know that's coming off. I'm just going to feel around. There's our wiring, I'm going to pull that through, like this. I'm going to disconnect this right here. Now we've removed our steering wheel.

We're going to get our steering wheel ready. We've got it marked. We want to line up our markings with this as we go on. Okay? So I'm just going to take these and right up along the top, so we're going to put them through along the top hole there. Being very careful not to spin our clockspring. If it moves a little bit, that's okay. I'm not going to get mad at you. But you want to make sure that you don't spin it around. Okay. So we've got that. We'll put this up in here, just like that. It's clipped in. Pull my wires with me here. Okay. As we go now, we want to make sure that all your wires are coming through the steering wheel hole and you're lining up your steering shaft with the lines that you made on the steering wheel. Okay? I'm going to take a look at it. Looks like maybe I want to come off and I want to go one, two. Okay. It looks pretty good. All right. Now we can move ahead to the next step.

Okay. I'll just tuck these up and out of the way for a second here. I'm going to take my nut, put it on here. There we are. Okay. I'm going to hold the steering wheel and I'm going to tighten down this nut. Okay. Right now it's bottomed out, so I'm holding my steering wheel, give it a teeny bit more, all my lines are lined up perfectly. Looks like I'm doing all right. Okay. So now it's time to connect in our airbag/horn pad. You can start with whichever wire you want. This is the ground wire for the horn. It makes it go beep beep. Black to black. Okay? The connectors go facing down. We're just going to hold the sides, slide it in and push in the center. Locked. I'm going to try to make sure that the centers are lifted up, by the way. Go along the side, push it in and then push in the locking center. Okay? Give them a gentle tug. Nothing's coming apart. Very nice. We're going to take our horn pad or airbag. We're going to go ahead and gently press it in. There we are. Perfect. All right. Let's connect the battery and we'll move on to the next step.

Okay. We'll grab our battery cable. Battery, when you go to connect these it might arc or spark. If it does, don't let it scare you. Just keep on going, okay? Don't put it on, arc, spark, lift it up, on, arc, spark, lift it up. One and done, okay? Just go for it. A little spark. I'm going to tighten this up. My ten millimeter. Nice and tight. Okay? Okay, so let's try the horn. Sounds good. It's a HELLA horn. We're going to start up the vehicle. Just give it one second. Make sure we don't have any lights on here. No airbag light or anything like that. I got my seatbelt light, my seatbelt's not on. A couple of lights. No airbag light. Looks like I'm doing all right. There we are. Easy-peasy.

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