after market steering wheel heater available for '17 Limited?

[haviland]

I recently bought a leftover '17 and noticed later that a steering wheel heater was an option. My wife's car had one and I really liked it.

I wonder if I can get the system installed either by a dealer or an aftermarket company. I called the dealer and he said if it wasn't listed on the Ford Accessories website it wouldn't work because the vehicle would not be set up for it.

This may seem like a strange request but since I will be paying for this vehicle for many moons, if I can get a heated steering wheel at a reasonable cost I would do it. Does anyone have any first hand experience with this issue?

thanks, Peter

 

[Cookieman00x]

for 17 Heated steering wheel was not an option, which is weird because my wife's 13 explorer has it.

An aftermarket wrap of some sort would probably look weird unless you found a local upholstery shop that was able to leather wrap over it.

My thought would be looking into the comparability of an f-150 wheel swap or swapping the heaters off one if you want an OEM look to it.

Or you can just get a heated slip on cover that you can take off in non cold months.

https://www.truepowertools.com/products/heated-steering-wheel-cover

 

[haviland]

On page 69 of my Expy owner's manual it mentions heated steering wheel (if equipped). So I assumed it was available.

The heated slip on cover sounds interesting. I wish I could see some reviews on it. It sounds like you need to put it on before driving and then remove it before starting off.

 

[jeff kushner]

Watching this thread....

 

[17LimitedExpy]

I’m working on swapping over a heated steering wheel from an Explorer...along with the wiring, clock spring, and HSWM. I’ll start a new thread once I get closer to finishing.

 

[Cookieman00x]

I wonder if you could run the wheel heater off the defroster circuit so when you remote start in the cold and the rear defrosters come on you could add in a 5 min timed relay and shut the wheel heater off.

I dont like the bottom of the explorer wheel (6 o'clock position), the part where I put my hand bothers me.

I also wonder about the airbag from the explorer and its inflation being not designed for the expedition. Unless you can leave the expedition airbag.

 

[17LimitedExpy]

Expedition airbag will not work on the Explorer wheel..

 

[star-art]

I suspect one of the bigger challenges of getting an OEM wheel to work will be the steering wheel buttons. I've studied several different Ford wheels and none of the buttons appear to be an exact match for what we have in our 2015-17 trucks. I just got a 2017 wiring manual so I can look more closely at what it might take to create custom buttons to fit a different steering wheel.

Also, the late model (2013+?) F250 steering wheel is the same as the 07-14 Expedition so that might be a better candidate for a swap. Still, the issue of needing to customize those steering wheel buttons remains. I am looking at this approach. So far, it looks as if the F150 and Expedition clock springs are the same (physically) so it might be possible to swap one for the other.

 

[17LimitedExpy]

Explorer steering wheel buttons are nearly identical in function to my 17 Expy...just a couple of minor differences that I can live with. I have already test fitted a 2016 Explorer wheel in my Expy and have the buttons working...except for a couple of minor differences.

You would be surprised on the variety of Ford clock springs that will work in our 15-17 Expy...more to follow in the HSW thread.

 

[star-art]

Wow! That's good to know. It seems Ford now uses a system of Analog-to-Digital "Channels" for the steering wheel buttons. We need to know the resistor values inside each button cluster to ensure that when a button is pressed the correct voltage is seen by the module.

Is the Explorer wheel smaller in diameter than our Expy wheel? We recently traded our Explorer so I can't recall.