Installing PAC SWI-RC steering wheel button control module
 

PAC's instructions are fairly horrible but there are only three wires on the SWI-RC module that need to be wired, 12v, ground, and a yellow signal wire. The yellow wire is to be connected to a "white/red/yellow dot" wire, but it gives no indication of where this wire is located.

Has anyone installed this unit before that may be able to give me insight into where this wire is located?

I installed this on my E36 M3 that I retrofitted Steering wheel controls from E39 M5. I will go in the steering column on the body side connector to the slip ring for the steering wheel. I never took pics... BUT just make sure you attach (splice it in) on the body side of the slip ring harness so if you ever need to, you can still remove the steering wheel without messing up your wiring...

I've no experience with the PAC unit and I don't know what model car you have (year, engine etc.) but I CAN tell you that the white/red/yellow (SW/RT/GE in German) is the I/K bus and this wire is found in lots of locations. It's a serial data bus that runs between many of the modules in the dash (and the whole car in fact). You should be able to tap into this wire almost anywhere that suits, although I would be inclined to use a SW/RT/GE wire close to the MID/Radio in the dash (if that's where you radio is - mine is).

*UPDATE*

I just had a look at PAC's instructions - which say to cut the SW/RT/GE (or SW/GR/GE - white/grey/yellow) in half!! And they say to do this in the steering column, as per what bhennrich said above.

DON'T cut the SW/RT/GE wire in half anywhere else - stuff will stop working...

It's odd the connect the steering wheel controls in the manner that PAC suggest - most units tap into the data bus and extract the appropriate control data from the data stream. I guess the PAC unit needs complete access to the controls, so it might be best to track down the SW/RT/GE (or SW/GR/GE) wire in the steering column as they suggest.

I would think if you were to "cut" the wire and not "tap" into it, you would lose all other steering controls!?!? I wouldn't give up cruise control for stereo control. I would roll the dice on tapping in...


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What stereo did you install to need the PAC unit?


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Yeah, that would be my call too - tap into the wire (behind the radio should work) and see what happens - I hate cutting up factory looms!:yikes:

No the cruise control works just fine, when you install an aftermarket head unit you use the volume and song selection button function.

So I installed it, the wire was "white with a grey stripe" not anything like what PAC described. Additionally, the white wire was very yellowed so I honestly thought that it was yellow and not white when I first saw it. I followed it out of the clockspring and tested it before running anything to it. It is roughly 11.6v when the ignition is one and whenever a button is pressed the voltage will drop by roughly 0.5v. Everything works as it should now minus the mute or phone buttons which I never use anyway.