How to Replace Steering Wheel Coupler 2011-14 Hyundai Sonata

Hi, I'm Mike from 1A Auto. We've been selling auto parts for over 30 years.

Hey everyone, Sue here from 1A Auto and today we have a 2011 Hyundai Sonata in the shop and it has a steering clunk. Pretty common and it ends up being this nice rubber steering couplers, what they call it. We're going to show you how to take your steering column out and replace it. If you need any parts for your car, click on the link below and head on over to 1aauto.com.

So first thing you're going to do whenever you're working with electrical equipment such as airbags, the ignition is we're going to open the hood and we're going to disconnect that negative battery cable. Safety latch is right in the center, 10 millimeter wrench or socket, we're going to disconnect this negative terminal. This manufacturer recommends that you wait 30 seconds before disconnecting any electrical connectors. I say play it safe and do two minutes.

So now the battery is disconnected. It's been longer than 30 seconds. So that way the airbag module doesn't deploy by accident and the directions say to take the airbag out, steering wheel off. We're going to try and do it a little bit faster way and it's basically, I'm going to put the key in the on position. There's no battery so it won't turn on. And I'm going to turn the steering wheel. We'll take this one screw out and then I'm going to turn the wheel once, 80 this way and there's the exact same screw on this side.

Now I'm going to center the steering wheel again. You want to make sure that's centered as possible. Now, it's a tilt steering wheel. So I'm going to loosen it up and now I can grab this top steering column plastic cover and pop it up. Probably going to take a body trim tool. Get in there and pop it up. I can set that aside. So we'll take the side panel off. Now we can see we've got a Phillips screw here, here. Take those two out first. There's a shorter stubby, one. Take the fuse panel cover off and we'll see what we got here. Got one more Phillips screw. One over here.

I'm going to grab this panel. Push down on these clips. Disconnect all the electrical. 10 millimeter socket. We're going to disconnect this panel, the metal bracket. It's like the knee, knee panel. I like to keep all the bolts and nuts together with the item. Now a Phillips screwdriver. I have one last bolt on the column cover down below here. I'll pull down on the tilt. Now I can pull this cover off. So now I'm going to undo the fuse box harness that's going to be in the way.

This is a pull down on this lever. Pull that out of there. We've got a little tab here, so I'm going to get a body tool. Pull that right out, I'm going to use a metal body tool. There we go. Now we have the clock spring connector, part of the airbag system. You see yellow, it's always airbag, so pay attention, make sure that you have the battery disconnected whenever you disconnect that or reconnect it. Okay, another connector. Ignition switch. And last but not least is up here. Our wiper control. If you can't get to something, it's okay to leave it attached until you drop the steering column down to get a better view. I'd rather have you do that than pull and force the harness.

So now down below here I'm going to disconnect the steering column shaft. 14 millimeter socket and break that mounting bolt free. Never use a hammer on any sort of steering column mechanism. There is a ... For accidental, they have crash compression style shafts and if you use hammers on them, does damage. All right, there's the column where it attaches to the steering wheel. Now that can come down. I'm just going to put the bolt right back in so I know where it is. Now I'm just going to take this Phillips screw out. This is the actual vent opening that goes to your feet, for your heat, your AC. Just grab it, pull it right out. Now we're going to take the four mounting bolts that mount the steering column to the body and there's four of them. Two on each side, two in the front here, closest to the steering wheel are studs with nuts on. This is a 12 millimeter socket. Place those aside.

I'm going to leave that one partially in. So as I do this and it falls down, don't forget you still have, well at least I do. I have some of the harnesses still connected so I'm going to pay attention to that. And another thing about the steering wheel is it has a thing called a clock spring in it, and that activates the airbag. The steering wheel can not turn more than what it's supposed to turn, and that means that this factory wheel does a turn and a half and that's its max. If I let it go past that, it can rip the steering clock spring. So if you need to put your key back in and lock the steering wheel, then you should do it. The steering wheel's locked. Okay, now let it come down.

Now I can see my electrical, a lot easier to get to. Take this right out of here. Take this off at this angle. Now we have this power box right here. Now I can see this clip. Push down, pull that out. This is what we're getting at right here. So let's take this last clip out. There we go. So that's a safety lock. I'll put it back in now. So in the future when I go to attach it, I just connect it right in. All right, let's bring it out on the bench.

So we're going to now disconnect the actual electrical motor and it's a T30 Torx bit and there's three of them. Okay, I think I'm going to place it back down, so there's nothing that falls out. Lift it up and there it is. So here's the new one and here's the old one. Very common with this vehicle. Now with the shop air, I'm just going to blow the plastic particles out. What doesn't come out, I'm going to have to wipe down with a brush. A neoprene brush, not a wire brush. Only because it's an electrical motor and you want to do minimal damage. You might have to take a pocket screwdriver and see if you can get some of the heavy particles off. I would not recommend spraying any sort of chemical directly on there.

All right, I'm going to place the new one right down in here. There's no top or bottom to it. It's the same. Just push it right down in there. There you go. Take my T30, I'm just going to hand tighten them, bottom them out and torque them to specs of 8.7 foot pounds.

Now install the reverse procedure and I'm going to put the column back in, but I wanted you to be able to see the cutout where the bolt goes. This is where that steering knuckle with a U joint goes. So there's two cutouts, there's one here and one here. So the yolk should line right up with either one of those because I haven't turned the steering wheel and I haven't turned the yolk. So just make sure you get the splines all lined up so that the bolt will go in clearly on either side. So this is the steering shaft that I'm talking about and we can see that the bolt is on the bottom part of it. I'm going to line this up and first thing I'm going to do is try to bring that the top in here so that I can put a nut on there. All right.

I'm just snugging it. You want there still to be movement so that you can definitely line up all the bolt holes. Once again, I'm just snugging it. I know that this column, this wiring harness goes out through the center. I can connect this right now in the module. I'm going to follow my harness up. That's the airbag harness, ignition. I like to leave the column loose so I make sure everything lines up in place before I snug it down. Now I'm going to put this up in place, and that goes over here. Now he comes the steering shaft.

So I'm lining the splines up and I'm going to lift that shaft up and slide it right on. Now I'll know whether it's one spline off if the bolt does not go in. So now I can get that bolt started by hand and it's all lined up perfectly. I'm going to get my ratchet wrench, snug it down. Use a nice long ratchet. Make sure I bottom that out, nice and tight. Now I'm going to tighten up the four mounting bolts on the steering column to the body. I'm going to go opposite ends of each other. Going to get a longer ratchet and really snug it up.

All right, now we're ready to connect the rest of our wires. So this slides right in and then you pull this, it starts down in the bottom and it goes up to the lock position. This goes to our kick panel. So now we can put our steering column housings on. I'll get up there and get the wiper connector. There we go. Make sure you hear everything click in, replace the top down in first and grab the bottom one. Make sure the key's out. There we go. We'll put the bottom mountain screw in first. Let's put our heating vent back up.

You'll see the connector where it connects right in there, it's so easy, it's like it's fitted. That's why it's easy. And I'll put the mounting screw in and that's a Phillips. All right, now we can put the metal part of the kick panel back. So you have a hook right here that's going to line up over there. And then you have a stud on this side. So the hook goes right up into that body piece. And then the stud lines up over here and you can put a bolt in. I'm just going to ... Snug it right down with my fingers and then nut right over here, and I'll put the other three in. With my 10 millimeter socket, I'm going to snug these all up. Okay, that's all set. Let's get ready to put the kick panel up.

Let's hook up the OBD-II connector that just pops right back into the bracket. Here it click, this connector and now I'm going to put these two up in before I guide the plastic into place, there we go. Now I'm going to line up all the plastic keyways and then slide the housing's ride in. Okay, we got one, two, three, four screws, and then two for the steering column. Two for the steering column are going to be two flat ones and then the two flat ones over here for the side of the door panel, and these two with the hex on them, go down below here. One there. And you get this one, and then the bottom one right here.

Now we can put that side panel on, and I'll line these two tabs up with the two tabs that are up in there, making sure I get the rubber seal out of the way. Snap it down. If the seal decides to bend a little bit. So just take a nice body tool and start from up here with it, bring it down. Perfect. Put our fuse box cover back on. Now I'm going to put the key in so I can turn steering wheel and put those two screws in. Just line it up. Center your steering wheel back out. Now make sure you turn your key in the off position and key out because now we're ready to connect the battery and make sure no airbag lights and all our lights work. Grab your terminal, place it on. Make sure it's snugged down. I'm an advocate of that. Make sure you can see part of the terminals studs sticking up on the top. 10 millimeter. Tighten it, no play. Now let's start the car up. Brake's off. It looks like I need to get some gas. Nice and smooth. Look at that.

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