How to Remove Steering Wheel Airbag 2010-14 Subaru Outback

Hey, friends. It's Len here at 1A Auto. Today I'm working on a 2013 Subaru Outback. I want to show you how to remove the horn pad/airbag unit. It's going to be fairly easy. I want to be the guy that shows you how to do it. If you need any parts, you can always check us out at 1aauto.com. Thanks.

What we're going to do is we're going to put the key in the ignition just to the point that we can turn the wheel. Right now it's in the locked position. Now it's unlocked. I can see the hole, right here. Inside this hole there's a little clip. I'm going to try to find that clip, release the clip, and pull out on this. Then I'm going to do the same to the lower hole. Then the one that's on the complete opposite side of the steering wheel. I'm going to release the horn pad. I'm not going to pull it out very far. I just want it to be released at that point. Then we'll move onto the next step.

Okay, I got one. There we are. We got this loose. I'm just going to set it back in, just like that. Get my steering wheel as close to straight as I can. Now we're going to disconnect our negative battery terminal. There we are. Take that right off, we'll set it aside so there's no way it can get back on the battery. We've got our horn pad here, airbag, and everything. I just want to show you what we were dealing with when we're coming up through the holes on the sides. We were dealing with these clips right here. What you have to do is you have to get your tool in and see the tip of it, right there, and then just pry this over. Then, when you pry that over, it releases this, right here. Well, obviously, it would be that side, but this is closer to me. Anyway, it releases this, right here. You got to do that for all three. That little clip just goes around this and holds it in.

It's real difficult to get into, especially when you can't see. But that's, essentially, what you need to do. Go in through the hole, put your little pick in there, and then just slide that right off to the side. I'd say, Easy peasy, but not so much. This has been disconnected for several minutes now. What we want to do is we want to grab this little yellow thing, just try to pull it up, just like that. And you're just going to grab it, lift it right up. The orange wire goes to the orange. We'll do the same to the black, go right under the yellow, lift up on that, grab it, lift it. Easy, peasy.

To disconnect this, we're just going to grab, right here, just going to try to pull this off, hopefully. There we are. All right.

Now it's time to connect in our airbag/horn pad. You can start with whichever wire you want. This is the ground wire for the horn. It makes it go beep, beep. Black to black. The connectors go facing down. We're just going to hold the sides, slide it in, and push in the center, locked. I'm going to try to make sure that the centers are lifted up, by the way. Go along the side, push it in, and then push in the locking center. Give them a gentle tug, nothing is coming apart, very nice. I'm going to take our horn pad, or airbag. We're going to go ahead and gently press it in. There we are, perfect. All right, let's connect the battery, and we'll move onto the next step.

We'll grab our battery cable. Battery. When you go to connect these, it might arc or spark. If it does, don't let it scare you, just keep on going. Don't put it on, arc, spark, lift it up. On, arc, spark, lift it up. One and done. Just go for it. A little spark. I'm going to tighten this up, my 10 millimeter, nice and tight. Let's try the horn, sounds good. It's a hello horn. We're going to start up the vehicle, just give it one second. Make sure we don't have any lights on here, no airbag light or anything like that. I've got my seatbelt light. My seatbelt is not on. A couple of lights, no airbag light. Looks like I'm doing all right. There we are. Easy, peasy.

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