Audi S3 Steering MF Wheel w/ Airbag Group Buy Feeler...

[A3racer]

My dealer wanted to charge me $1,200 for a replacement airbag on my A3.

[BrillntRed06]

I would keep search ebay in germany/austria/UK because I bought mine for a just about $600 shipped from Germany with the airbag. You can even get a steering wheel, minus the airbag, and it still would have been cheaper than the dealership or any other website. just my 2 cents.

[tp.]

count me in if price is right

all black with dsg

[NY_Avant]

Quote, originally posted by Kstyle »

Is it possible to install and wire a wheel with controls to an a3 that came without?

yes it will work no problem

And FYI, S3, TT-S, TT, R8 use the same harness and clockspring as our cars so only wheels for these cars are plug n play, any others i.e A8,RS6,RS4,S8 require some rewiring

[sciblades]

can't we use the airbag we already have?

[tp.]

Quote, originally posted by sciblades »

can't we use the airbag we already have?

no s3 uses circular ones

[FreeGolf]

sent out a few emails to some vendors hopefully hear back from them by monday... <fingers crossed>

[crew219]

Quote, originally posted by A3racer »

My dealer wanted to charge me $1,200 for a replacement airbag on my A3.

Ouch, airbag only is ringing up as $650 for me.

Dave

[FreeGolf]

both are fairly pricey hence the reason for group buy.

[tp.]

oh yea add me a sline badge

[LWNY]

Quote, originally posted by tp. »

no s3 uses circular ones

Can't we just stuff the existing airbag into the round hole, and maybe buy the round cover?

[kwanja_a3]

Quote, originally posted by LWNY »

Can't we just stuff the existing airbag into the round hole, and maybe buy the round cover?

Even if you could, I wouldn't feel safe driving after, maybe that's just me

[krazyboi]

Quote, originally posted by kwanja_a3 »

Even if you could, I wouldn't feel safe driving after, maybe that's just me

Since when was it ever about safety? I thought it was all about looks?!?!

[A3Danimal]

Quote, originally posted by krazyboi »

Since when was it ever about safety? I thought it was all about looks?!?!

I remember driving around forever with a Momo steering wheel on my 84 GTI.... Ya, it never had an airbag to begin with, but it didn't make me scared to drive it.... I guess its more about looks than safety for me.

[LWNY]

Or in the old days with the American barges, steer the car fast into a turn, the whole car tilts outward, and the driver slides across the bench seat into the passenger side

[FreeGolf]

okay so we have our first hiccup... we can do a group buy and get a group rate however there are some issues... please read what the first vendor has told me:

"Matching Ebay pricing on a bulk quantity like this, not going to happen. The Ebay steering wheels you see are leftovers, stolen, used, misrepresented and come in low quantities. I deal with a company overseas who deals with leftover non-used factory parts for some random items. They get inventory in such a random manner that it's impossible to do a bulk order through them.

Second concern is that to work a large discount the product must be exactly the same. So mixing leather styles, stitching colors, functions, paddles, etc will not yield the lowest possible pricing unfortunately.

Getting 18-20 airbags set is going to be very hard. It is unlikely Audi will want to release 20x airbags from ANY market without question. In many cases airbags now require VIN to order and most certainly they do not often release 20x of them in one shot.

I am happy to price out the steering wheels in bulk, say 10x with paddles and 10x without. The same S3 wheel with the same color and leather scheme. So let me know if that works for you and what specs you want on the steering wheel."

so long story short... we need to all agree on the same type of wheel and agree on the amount of ones with paddles and ones with out paddles...

personally i can live with the plain tt-s flatbottom wheel which is all black with aerated leather on each side or the s3 wheel with the silver stitching. i think for group buy sake maybe if we did the all black it would be easiest for all? thoughts? input? feedback? please let me know so i may discuss with the vendor...

[rick89]

We should get what ever is easiest to source. i don't mind if there are a few changes. As long as we get something here its better then nothing.

[FreeGolf]

agreed. as stated earlier i think the wheel that matches everyone the best is the all black TT flat bottom MF wheel with the aerated leather on the sides...

also if these wheels are anything like bmw wheels, we can get them all with paddles then just remove the paddles IF we cannot get 10 dsg and 10 non dsg buys.

[xnox202]

Couldn't agree more on that.

[tp.]

if you remove the dsg paddles there will be a hole there

[tp.]

[FreeGolf]

i could live with that if it means we save a substantial amount and get one wheel across the board...

noone will ever see those holes... however if the pricing difference is only a few dollars then its not worth it...

[LWNY]

Why not just take off the paddles and sell it to people who want to upgrade to paddles, or better yet buy all w/o paddles and everyone install their old paddles into this new steering wheel

[krazyboi]

Quote, originally posted by LWNY »

Why not just take off the paddles and sell it to people who want to upgrade to paddles, or better yet buy all w/o paddles and everyone install their old paddles into this new steering wheel

I've never looked at the back of a steering wheel w/o DSG, but I would assume if you bought the wheels w/o paddles, there would be no holes to retrofit...unless there are and they have plastic covers?!?!

Someone report back (not that I care, b/c I don't need a wheel, but someone else may).

[kwanja_a3]

Quote, originally posted by krazyboi »

Someone report back

No DSG paddle holes.

[krazyboi]

Quote, originally posted by kwanja_a3 »

No DSG paddle holes.

I had a feeling. Thanks for confirming.

Now go clean your floormats!

[ODY]

any word of pricing???

[FreeGolf]

i received one set of quotes from one vendor... he asked me to not post them until he can confirm them once more with his supplier...

i am waiting for a response from two others...

[neu318]

Quote, originally posted by FreeGolf »

i received one set of quotes from one vendor... he asked me to not post them until he can confirm them once more with his supplier... i am waiting for a response from two others...

does the pricing look promising atleast?

[SJB2]

Any more updates?

[FreeGolf]

Quote, originally posted by neu318 »

does the pricing look promising atleast?

nothing jawdropping, impulse buying jump up out of your seat lets do this now...

Quote, originally posted by SJB2 »

Any more updates?

no. nothing changed in one hour. lol, but hopefully soon.

[seph]

Anyone know the implications of shipping to Australia? anyone care to help?

if so - Sline + DSG for me!

[FreeGolf]

idk, i would have to ask the vendor directly... another member from greece asked similar question...

i received an email from another vendor last night saying they will have prices for me this evening...

[FreeGolf]

okay vendor one is out of the running after crunching numbers and trying to get a good deal going this is the second and last response:

"We worked on this group buy last night and unfortunately there just isn't much margin in these wheels, we are going to have to decline on this group buy. "

two vendors left in the running... let's see what happens.

[LWNY]

Can't somebody source these from the original manufacturer of these wheels? I'm sure their price to Audi is only a small fraction of the price that Audi charges. If one is to build a A3 purely from replacement parts cost, it would cost over $100k.