S60 V70 XC70 XC90 S80 - P2 Steering Wheel Compatibility & 4-Spoke to 3-Spoke Conversion Megathread

[tabormeister]

Hi there. If you, like me, are thinking about upgrading/swapping your P2 car's steering wheel, this thread is for you.

This includes:

• 1999–2006 Volvo S80 (P23)
• 2001–2009 Volvo S60 (P24)
• 2001–2007 Volvo V70 (P26E)
• 2002–2007 Volvo XC70 (P26L)
• 2003– Volvo XC90 SUV (P28)

All this research was done in order to stick a P2 XC90 3-spoke wood wheel in my 2006 V70.

There are a few separate wheels that you might want to upgrade to. If you have the stock S60 wheel for instance, you might want to upgrade to an XC90 style wood wheel, or a leather R-style wheel. R-style leather wheels come in black leather, XC90 style wheels come in tan or black leather, with a few different types of wood to choose from. My car has the oak interior, so that's the wheel I went with.

Here's an R wheel, with the sweet silver accented buttons Volvo introduced in 2007

Here's an XC90 style wood wheel with silver buttons and black leather

Here's an XC90 style wood wheel with black buttons and tan leather

There are a few things to consider before buying things. First, button compatibility. For 2001-2004 S60 and V70's, (and presumably '03-'04 XC90's and '99-'04 S80's, though I can't be sure) this style connector is used for the steering wheel buttons. Here are two good angles of it in a wood wheel, courtesy of Erie Volvo.

From '05 on, this style connector is used, including for the sweet silver '07+ buttons.
Here's a closeup of the end of the connector

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Top down view

All P2 wheels will work, but you'll have to get a different cage/button assembly if the wheel you want has the wrong connector.

Second, air bags. For a four-spoke to three-spoke conversion, you have to get the wheel, buttons, and air bag. For three-spoke to three-spoke, you only need the wheel. (unless you want to swap air bags or buttons for a newer style)

Air bags come in several flavors - '01 to '04 had this square Volvo emblem.
Three spoke example

Four spoke example

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~'04/5+ had this round Volvo emblem.
Three-spoke example

Four-spoke example

Volvo R cars came with this air bag w/ blue stitching to match the interior

Not to mention the cars that came with tan or gray interiors, these have air bags to match.

All P2 air bags SHOULD have the same connectors - one purple and one green, with one important exception - XC90 air bag part 8686223 for instance is the same as all other P2 cars, but I believe in 2005 an additional gray plug was added, thus breaking its compatibility with other P2 air bags. Additionally, P2 four-spoke is the same as three-spoke, just upside down.

'03-'04 XC90 air bag connector

'05+ XC90 air bag connector showing extra gray plug

So for my car, since I wanted to go from 4-spoke to 3-spoke with silver buttons, I bought a 2005 XC90 wheel with the right button connector for my '06 V70, another cheap 2007 S60 basic wheel with silver buttons to swap to the nice wood wheel, and a tan XC90 three-spoke airbag, part #8686223. The S60 wheel came with a vibration damper in it, so I swapped that over to the XC90 wheel too.

Here's a Volvo PDF with instructions on how much torque to put on the bolts, etc.

instruction_VCC-129448-1.pdf

(548.92 KiB) Downloaded 1321 times

Happy swapping!


keywords: S60 V70 XC90 S80 XC70 Steering Wheel Swap 3-spoke 4-spoke three-spoke four-spoke three four spoke compatibility wood r wheel

[oragex]

Interesting, on my canadian 2003 S60 built Dec 2002 I have the 3-spoke with the round blue emblem (the car supposedly has the original airbag)

[JRL]

I've used them all.
The wood looks great but to me feels AWFUL (and cold in the winter)
The 08-09 S60 Sport 3 spoke wheel looks the best (with it's little silver strip at the bottom), it feels great and the radio buttons are easier to use than a 4 spoke
R wheel is the same shape but has the R on it and no silver strip at the bottom which is very classy and can be used on any P2

[tabormeister]

UPDATE! I've been corrected on the dates, the round Volvo emblem was phased in for MY 2003 on some cars.