Dcasole

Is it possible to add the left side telephone controls to a wheel that did not have them

I have this wheel but with paddle shifters



I want to have this one with the telephone controls also



Is the harness there to hook up the controls?

I have a Costar Bluestar unit that uses all the ON STAR controls in the mirror and plays back audio thru the radio just like the factory unit

While it works well I don't like to have to reach up and press the telephone button on my mirror when I want to place or answer a call

Will it control my COSTAR Bluetooth unit ?

Thanks
Dave

Grimlock13

Looking in the parts catalog here : http://stores.revolutionparts.com/cu...-and-trim-scat

It appears that for a wheel with paddle shifters the blutooth buttons only come with the whole wheel BUT for wheels without paddle shifters you can buy just the buttons.

So I would assume the wiring in the wheel for one with paddle shifters doesn't have the wires in the wheel for the phone buttons if it didn't come with it.

This is solely based on the referenced catalog, as I haven't looked at both side by side.

I would think that you would have to buy the correct whole wheel (with paddle shifters, with voice) and swap the whole wheel. Then you can sell your current wheel to someone as an upgrade from a previous year 2005-2011.

Sucks that it is a $280 fix (-selling original wheel) vs. a $30 fix

Dcasole

Grim , I figured that I would need to buy the wheel so now the question is what else do I need .

Does the harness from the wheel plug into something (clockspring)

Is the harness from a car without telephone controls the same as one with ?

If it's plug and play I will buy the wheel , if not then I will skip the idea .
I was looking to see if anyone has done this wheel swap ??

Thanks
Dave

Kent1999

I had a similar situation -- I upgraded the steering wheel in my 2012 1LT GS (a manual trans -- so no paddles) from a wheel with just radio buttons to a wheel with both radio *and* phone buttons, and it worked right out of the box with OnStar and Bluetooth-connected phone calls -- no clockspring mods needed, just plug-n-play. There is no separate clockspring connection for the phone buttons -- both phone and radio buttons use the same clockspring wiring and circuit. (they each just throw different resistance values on the same signal wire)

FYI FOR BLUESTAR -- while my new steering wheel phone buttons worked with OnStar and Bluetooth connected calling, I just tried a CoStar Bluestar device, and while the "answer/make call" steering wheel spoke button worked, the "end call" steering wheel button did *not* work -- I had to end calls from the OnStar button on the mirror. I don't know if that's a limitation of the Bluestar unit or if my particular Bluestar unit was defective. Just throwing that out there as an extra data point.

EDIT TO ADD FOR OLDER UPGRADE/RETROFIT:
The steering wheel buttons for phone use were added with the advent of BT on the C6 (2009). If someone would retrofit a 2009+ steering wheel with phone buttons to a 2007-2008 C6, it is unclear as to whether the phone buttons on the spoke would function at all. However, even though the steering wheel wiring is there, I think it is likely (but not certain) that the 2007-2008 C6 electronics probably wouldn't know how to interpret the new 'phone' button signals on the wire, and thus the phone buttons on the wheel wouldn't work.

Dcasole

Kent , Once again you pull thru for me !

Thanks !!

Dave

Kent1999

My OE 2012 steering wheel (manual trans w/o paddles, radio buttons only) did NOT have the internal wiring to simply plug in the left spoke "phone" control buttons, even if I had managed to purchase the button panel alone.

So, if you want the add the steering wheel phone buttons, I think you have to buy the entire steering wheel, regardless of transmission type. The connection to the clockspring is exactly the same, but the little wiring harness *inside* the steering wheel is different, and is, of course, *not* sold separately from the wheel.

I ended up buying an entire new steering wheel with the phone buttons and then resold my original steering wheel. Since my original steering wheel was a low-mile 2012 'new style' wheel, the upgrade ended up costing me less than $100 out of pocket after selling the old wheel off. Not too bad, especially since I took the opportunity to also upgrade to a steering wheel with red stitching at the same time.

Dcasole

Thanks again Kent

looking at the new wheels now

another thing that I am going to buy that will make my wife very unhappy lol lol

Dave

Grimlock13

I have the auto with paddles, so I wasn't sure of that and like I said was going off the catalog information.

Since you said the wiring wasn't there and still needed the whole wheel , it's puzzling why the catalog would have a separate Part number for the BT button module only on the M/T wheel section.

This is what this forum is for though. To solve issues and have input from various sources to verify that info is correct.

Kent1999

Puzzling is right! Quite a few online parts catalogs that I have used (including the ones from some of the very well known parts sellers) are incomplete -- listing some parts but not others. Through painful (read: costly) personal experience, I have learned that just because a part isn't listed for a particular model in an online catalog, does *not* mean that the part does not exist for that model.

I've done quite a few OEM parts retrofit jobs on C6's over the years and have often had to pay restocking fees or resell brand new parts because I took the parts catalog's word for an application.

It seems like the simpler and more user-friendly a parts catalog is, the less likely it is to be complete. This is especially true where a part is specific to a particular trim, color or option package.

Dcasole

I always come here first before I make that costly mistake .... these guys on this forum have always helped me

Dave