Clock spring replacement costs

[Geoffcapes]

Hi all,

 

Got into car today, turned steering wheel and heard a faint clock noise.  Airbag light came on with message Error Airbag.  Also none of steering wheel buttons work.

 

I'm thinking it needs a new clock spring. Anyone have any experience with this fault, and what it may cost?

[Geoffcapes]

Answering my own question incase it helps anyone in future.

 

Dealer is £800.

Got mine repaired for £150 while I waited.  KG auto Electronics.  They do a postal service or you go to them - either in Birmingham (handsworth) or Oldham.  So far so good.

[MrSecretPotato]

I have recently tried various stalks in order to retrofit AAC, the clock spring was included with the stalk assembly. Parts were from broken down cars, so used but they were around the £50-70 mark (spring and stalk assembly together). Fitting the spring only is around a 15 min job.

 

I needed coding some extra coding and my VCDS was not capable to do the full coding, so I replaced the original parts for now.

[Karock]

To the uninitiated what is the function of a clock spring in the steering column.?

 

Thanks.

[MrSecretPotato]

It's basically how the steering wheel controls and anything that turns with the steering wheel connects to the rest of the car. This includes the horn, airbag, and all the buttons on the wheel itself, excluding the stalks which are stationary compared to the steering wheel. It's a spool of ribbon wire which allows you to turn the wheel about 2.5-3 full turns in each direction. When this ribbon wire breaks, the car cannot communicate with the modules on the wheel and that's what causing the errors to show up.

[Karock]

Many thanks for your most comprehensive explanation, another thing  to fail!

 

I prefer the old and uncomfortable with static controls on the dash ,no bells and whistles but cheap and straightforward to maintain.

[MrSecretPotato]

The clock spring is a fairly old thing in the cars, the horn and steering wheel airbag was mostly done with these before the smart features.

I'd say not turning the wheel lock to lock is a good way to prolong their life as this puts less stress on the wire. There is some slack built into them, around an extra half turn worth of wires, but not turning the wheel until it locks definitely helps.

[Karock]

In electronic parlance perhaps the clockspring would just be called a ribbon cable!

[StEdmund]

I'd never heard of 'the clock spring' - every day's an education on here. Thank you!