Mk4 Golf Multifunction Steering Wheel and Cruise Retrofit

Ever get tired of having to take your hand off the steering wheel, move it slightly towards the centre of the car to operate some radio functions? Ever wanted to have cruise control?

Well thats what I wanted, having had newer Volkswagens with these features, I decided it would be nice to retrofit these items in to my mk4 golf as they were factory options at the time the car was produced. It seems its not something thats well documented and there are just bits on various forums, but not exactly what I am doing here: Cruise control + Multifunction Steering wheel retrofit. It seems there are some forum threads on how to do cruise control, but still not everything is greatly documented. Hopefully this instructable will help quite alot in the process.

One thing I will say about this instructable is that I am working on a particular model of mk4 golf, which while many steps are the same, some will differ. My model of car is a UK 2001 V6 4Motion Golf, its classed as a 'highline' so consequently has some wiring/items already in place. Not 100% sure on if cars of other countries are going to be the same.

A prerequisite of the cruise upgrade is a car thats 'fly-by-wire' as in it has an electronic throttle pedal and throttle body, I think this applies to diesels from about 1998-2005 and petrol cars 2000-2005, I had a year 2000 Bora V5 engine and that was throttle cable, not fly by wire, but thats the change over period depending on engine I think. Once again theres quite a few models out there with various engines:

Petrol/Gasoline

1.4 - economy model, additional wiring required

1.6- economy model, some engines additional wiring required (apparently some had factory wiring, maybe later models)

1.8

1.8 Turbo

2.0 - economy model, additional wiring required (I think)

2.3 V5 20v (10v model is cable throttle)

2.8 V6 24v (12v version will be cable throttle)

Diesel

1.9SDI

1.9TDI

To do this install you should be pretty competent with cars, wielding a spanner, screwdriver, meaning you most likely have the tools to do the job, some of the stuff I used was this:

Torx bits/Socket set - all of the dash parts are held in place with Torx Screws.

Various Spanners

Pozidrive/Flathead screwdrivers

Soldering iron+Solder

Electrical tape/Heatshrink (heatshrink preferred)

A Laptop and VCDS + Cable for coding, or a friend/mechanic who can do this - Fairly important as its needed to activate the cruise control

Optional - Tesa Fabric tape for wrapping any of the loom, like the factory did. I guess standard PVC electrical tape will do.

Optional - Plastic pry-bar set for removing interior panels(saves damaging the interior with a screw driver).

I'd suggest this is the sort of job to do over a weekend, although I have been doing it over several weeks as you can take off some panels, trace out locations and get to know what your connectors are ect, then do it over some evenings/weekends, or try hard and do it in a day.

Depending on the model and engine you are starting with this list will vary slightly, so I'll break it down in to a 'core' and 'additional'

Core

-Multifunction steering wheel (MFSW)

You can source this from a breakers yard, ebay etc, you'll want the wheel and airbag, it can be found on mk4 golf, Bora/Jetta and Passat from 1998 - 2005

-Cruise Control Indicator Stalk

These come in 2 varieties: Cruise only and Cruise for cars with MFSW from the factory. Whats the difference? Well 2 part numbers which translate to a cruise control indicator stalk that has 'on/off' on the face of the stalk and 2 buttons on the end - 8L0 953 513 J and the MFSW stalk that just has on/off slide switch on the face - 8L0 953 513 S. I'm planning to use a standard cruise stalk, but with the steering wheel as the normal stalks are cheaper/more available!

- Wiring looms

Theres technically a couple of looms you'll need for this, if you have a highline vehicle, chances are most of it is already in place, you will just require the stalk wiring and the MFSW wiring. I got my cruise stalk wiring on ebay from China, the MFSW bit, I also got on ebay, but they are all made by a company called Kufatec(based in Germany). The alternative is to strip it out of a donor vehicle.

-Clockspring

Apparently cars with ESP already have the right clockspring, it has additional cables required for the MFSW. I believe normal cars have a 4 pin clockspring, ESP ones have a 5 pin clockspring.

-Control Relay 452/451

Can be found on ebay relatively cheap, if your car is pre 2001 Relay 452, apparently 2002> Relay 451. Seems counter intuitive, but apparently relay 451 is for canbus cars and can be coded with VAGcom to act like relay 452!

Additional (for other/economy models)

-Switches

You'll need a clutch switch+associated wiring which I am not certain is present on all models, which ideally you can get from a donor vehicle, any vehicle with ESP button(mk4 platform) on the dash should have this even if it doesnt have cruise or MFSW. Trace the wiring, take photos and disconnect as gently as possible. If you can get a donor to strip out will make things much easier :)

Brake Switch is different, its a 4 pin brake switch, 1 circuit is for the lights, the other feeds back to the car for traction control etc, check yours first.

- Wiring

Its advisable to look for a proper cruise control retrofit kit on somewhere like ebay that contains more than just the 5 cable stalk connection wire, there are additional cables that run to the ECU that highline cars already have.

-Clockspring

You will definitely need a different one on your car if not equiped with ESP button on the dash already. Apparently the clockspring has a sensor for detecting position in it on ESP cars, so VW decided to make one type.

One of the first jobs before we start in the car is modifying the wiring looms and understanding where they are going to go. I spent about a day looking through a Bentley Manual and my looms, along with drawing it out so that I could positively understand what I was connecting where.

The Kufatec loom I got from eBay was an 'all white' loom that has its location/colour printed in German on the wire. What makes that akward is it doesnt seem to follow the colours of the VW wiring loom according to the Bentley Manual!

I also had a cruise stalk loom from China, cheap and the colours were about what the manual said, these need to be spliced in to the Kufatec loom. I figured that I can use a standalone cruise stalk and a multifunction wheel side by side, as essentially the control relay and the stalk buttons do the same thing, so why not join them together? (plus it seems easier to get standalone stalks compared to the price of MFSW ones)

I have attached a wiring diagram for the steering wheel and stalk so you can see how it essentially connects to the same locations.I have included a picture thats coloured and the single colour PDF version of the wiring diagram I drew up on CAD as you can zoom in with the PDF to read the small writing, hopefully this will help alot!

This is where you need to break out the soldering iron and heat shrink. I stripped a little section of insulation on the Kufatec loom on each of the 4 'cruise' cables, I then cut the cruise stalk loom connectors off about 2 inches from the end, in case I wanted/needed some of the strange push in connections for something else. Tin your wires, solder them together and then when its cooled down slide some heat shrink over each of the new joints. You could use PVC electrical tape, but I have found over time it just doesnt stay put, especially if the car its warm inside! I then finished off by using some Tesa Cotton Tape to wrap the pair of looms together for a few inches near the connector - factory looking and tidy!

At this stage once you have the looms adapted you can actually start the project as some of it is installed from inside the car and requires nothing major to be taken off (the steering wheel) so you can start installing the MFSW socket/looms to parts under the dash leaving the car drive-able until you are ready for the big bit.

You can actually remove quite a few panels from the interior and still have a perfectly usable car. Its what I have been doing as the MFSW and cruise are not essential, but getting to work is, combined with the need to work on my van too, means I could just do bits.

I have attached some photos of the panels you need to remove to gain access under the steering wheel area to do some of the wiring. I found this is stuff that wasnt always documented and its also the more frustrating.

You'll need a Torx T20 and T25 to remove the lower dash panels, along with some plastic interior pry bars if you have them to pop some bits of panel off without damaging the interior. I started at the door, prizing off the fuse box cover, then worked round undoing the first batch of screws to remove the 2 outer panels.

The one near the fuse box comes off fairly easy, the one near the centre console is more difficult. Once you are sure all the screws are out, you need to pull the panel towards the drivers seat as its held in place with some annoying clips.

Then there is an inner plastic panel, which I dont quite understand why they have 2 like this, the inner one was just held in place with screws.

You should now have access to the entire area under the steering wheel.

You've already made the modifications to the loom so now you can start installing it, We'll start by doing the more awkward connector, the T10 bulkhead connector. I found that realistically despite my car being already 'pre-wired' you still need to remove the scuttle panel and access the T10 connector from both inside and outside of the car.

There is a black connector that goes through the bulkhead, I have come to know this as the 'T10' connector, which on highline models is already wired from the the engine bay side to the ECU apparently, meaning some connections just need inserting in the correct locations.

In order to get to the T10 connector inside, you actually need to remove the main relay mounting frame, which is secured in place with an M6 nut each side (a 10mm socket), I found there was one relay module I had to unplug to access one. The other thing you'll need to remove is the side fusebox, which is held in place with 2x Torx T25 screws, in the case of my car someone had managed to screw this right up and it took me over an hour to get them out, looks like the threads need re-tapping!

With the side fuse box unbolted it needs twisting and pulling through the hole in the side panel, this will allow you to then remove the relay frame panel, giving you access to the T10 connector.

You'll then need to go to the next step to unclip the plug from engine side so you can insert the cables inside (its a fiddly job). Once the connector is free, you'll need to put the purple center piece slightly through the connector (it slides sideways) as they will allow you to insert new new cables.

Once you have inserted the required cables in the T10 connector, you can now also plug the 452/1 'relay' holder in to the relay frame. It goes in position 5+6. The frame can now go back in place and you can if you needed just reel up the wires with some tape and put them in under the dash and keep driving the car.

Although I havent done this step to my car (because its a highline and pre wired) technically, I thought I would give some of it a mention.

On cars that need the additional wiring from the 'T10' connection on the bulk head that takes the wiring from inside to outside the car, you'll need to remove some additional parts to get to the ECU.

As I found even with a highline you still need access to the T10 connector to add 4 wires in from the passenger compartment to the connector.

To achieve access to the T10 connector there are several steps: removing the wiper arms (small puller advised as they are on a tapered splined shaft, although some penetrating oil might be enough) along with the plastic scuttle panel, which apparently you start by taking out the access to the cabin air filter (4 screws) located on the passenger side(I'm presuming VW mirrored this for cars that are different parts of the world, mines on the battery side of the engine bay), however I found the opposite end came out easier first. Be gentle with the scuttle panel, but it lifts kind of upwards to unclip it from the edge of the windscreen.

You'll need to also remove the wiper motor (and unplug it which can be a pain, so nows a good time to also service it by using a little spray grease on the joints) to allow access to the cover that goes through the bulkhead.

Although mine was pretty clean, now is a good time to clear out any debris from this area that can accumulate over time.

I found there was quite alot of information on this thread:

https://forums.seatcupra.net/index.php?threads/leo...

However thats a Seat which has different dash parts, but does have photos of connecting up the scuttle area wiring.

I have included some photos to help show how to getting to this.

Within The Kufatec loom there is a pair of wires marked as T20/11 and T8/3, now I did note that on the VW wiring diagram, the Kufatech T8/3 is actually marked up as T16/7. This makes much more sense as the OBD socket is 16 pin and if you check the pinout the pin 7 is the 'K-line' which is the diagnostic connection. What I also note is the 'power' ISO connector for the radio, pin 3 is the K-Line diagnostic connection, its an 8 pin connector, so you can see why it was labelled this way. The T20/11 is the Blue/Green/Yellow 3 part connector, which does things like CD changers and phone prep, Pin 11 is the bottom of the green nearest the blue connector (look online for this connector for a pinout). This pair of wires that go to the centre console, which allows the diagnostic system wiring to integrate and the stereo control.

There are also 2 more cables which may/may not be included in your car, depending on year there is also Canbus, which is 2 orange wires that are a twisted pair. My Kufatec loom didnt come with any cables in the 2 positions for Canbus, but did seem to come with 2 push in connectors which I can only presume are for this addition(although I also wonder if they might be designed to replace 2 other items in the system). I bought some wire the right colour and am going to add the cables as my OBD connector also has the orange Canbus cables.

You might not have a factory head unit, but thats ok, theres a little box you can get for most brands of stereo meaning you can control some things on the headunit from the steering wheel as if it was factory! I dont cover that in this instructable, but ebay is full of them, if you can do this, then you can add that piece of cake.

So first up you need to find your sockets, the stereo connection is in the blue/green/yellow coloured factory socket. I have an aftermarket stereo so this was just dangling around in the centre console which I currently have a section removed (another job), the OBD socket is held in place by 3 tabs that just push out the way to allow the socket to slide back in to the centre part of the dash.

If you look at the pictures you can see how its retained and also by pushing on the purple section of the OBD connector, it slides out of the way to reveal the pins, a small screwdriver will allow you to lift the retaining clip and slide the receptacle out the back. Do one at a time and make sure you remember which hole you removed a pin from.

I joined my wires to the cable in the same way as I did the wiring modifications, remove a little PVC sheathing and solder in, heat shrink and you're done.

Reassemble your connectors and place back in to their original locations.

To allow the multifunction steering wheel to illuminate like the rest of the dash, there is also a signal wire for this too.

As all the panels are removed from the dash its fairly easy to access the Light switch connector from the area where the side fuse box is, the connector is just held in place with a piece you press each side, should come out fairly easy.

I found the loom allows the connector to come down and out under the lightswitch (rather than out the side), which will allow you to get to the cabling and connect up to Pin 17. The back of the connector is marked up with numbers so its easy enough to find, use the previous method of removing the pin, stripping and soldering, followed by some heatshrink.

Finally plug it back in.

Lets start with some safety.

Airbags in cars will save your life in an accident, however the nature of how they are triggered means they should be handled with care.

Before you start this step, disconnect your battery(take a photo of your speedo clock before hand if you want to keep track of the mileage on your trip/fuel tank if you need), turn the ignition on and go do something else for an hour(I left my battery disconnected over night).

This should make sure there is no electrical charge anywhere that can accidentally fire the airbag while you're working on the car. Equally the bag should be handled carefully and stored somewhere which if it was to go off wouldnt cause any harm(I put mine in the boot, which would contain anything that happens if it did).

Once everything has been safely disconnected and discharged for an hour at least, its time to remove the steering wheel to begin. The airbag centre piece is held in place with a couple of really heavy duty spring clips. To release them the steering wheel will need to be turned approx 90 degrees from straight to reveal a hole each side of the wheel at the back of the wheel. You'll need something fairly strong and small to go through the hole to pop the clip off of its hook. You then then need to turn the wheel the other way and do the same for the second side. I think in the end I used an appropriate screwdriver, but I have seen people mentioning drill bits and various strong pins.

Once released you can get to the plug to unplug the airbag. Go and put the airbag somewhere safe (often people just put it in the boot of the car so its contained when just doing the stalk upgrade). There should also be a plug for the horn/wiring, disconnect this. Now you need to take the wheel off, make sure you recentre it, a 12mm XZN bit is required to undo the large nut in the centre, give the wheel a tug and off it should come. Try not to undo this against the steering lock, either hold or get someone to hold the wheel, I didnt find it too tight to undo with a ratchet in one hand and wheel in the other. Gently pull the wheel towards you.

You should now be greeted by the clock spring, make sure it stays in position, use a bit of tape to keep it in the right position for reassembly. There are a couple of clips at the top and bottom to gently prize outwards, once released it should unplug and put it to one side.

There are also the shrouds surrounding the steering wheel, held in place by a couple of screws and the normal sort of clip together arrangement these plastic parts seem to have, remove and put to one side.

You should now have access to the car side of clockspring connector, which is where we need to start adding new cables.

With the new components we put in place previously, we now need to make some modifications/additional connections to the steering wheel.

Originally the horn in the steering wheel was just switch, now though the relay 451/452 triggers the horn when you press the button. In order for there to be enough connections to the steering wheel, some are changed.

The one for the Horn is now connected to a cable labelled 'interconnect' or 'verbinden' in German. I'm not sure why its not just labelled horn?!

On the clock spring connector of the column side, there will a connector, which I think should standardly be 4 pin for cars without ESP and should be a 5 pin connection for cars with ESP. One location will be unpopulated and another location will require the pin to be removed and replaced with one of the new loom's cables. The Kufatec loom has 3 cables - T5/1 , T5/3 and interconnect. T5/1 and T5/3 will go in to the connector, the cable you remove from the connector needs to be connected to 'interconnect' as on mine it already comes with a crimp connection ready to accept the new wire.

With the wires inserted in to the 5 way connector and the modification made, the clockspring can now be replaced and connected up.

There is one power connection that comes from Fuse 5 of the fuse box on the end of the dash, depending on what kits you're using to do this, its either a case of taking the fuse out and popping the pin out to replace it with another Y type connector (I've seen this on some aftermarket cruise control kits) or you have 2 cables to solder in to the existing piece of wiring. On my Kufatec loom I found a wire just marked as 'fuenf' or Five in German, still doesnt give you much clue! on my cruise loom I had a black cable with a blue stripe, both these wires connect to the back of fuse five, so you can do the previous type solder connections by removing the pin, stripping some PVC and doing some soldering followed by heat shrink. Plug it back in and its done.

This should now leave just 2 final connections under the dash, that need to be connected which both have ring connections, one is marked ground, which handily there is a bolt down ground point right near the brake light switch and the power connector '+30' which is labelled on the bottom of the relay board. Undo the nut and insert the connection, replace the nut and tighten up as it was before.

So now you think you have everything in place, double check all the electrical connections are secure, fuse boxes back in place and that everything you have done seems to be right and secure. At this stage you can leave all the panels off as we need to do some testing.

Reconnect the battery. Do this with the keys in the igniton in the on position and nobody in the drivers seat.

Hopefully the airbag didnt just go off and everything on the dash has just come up zero'd. The horn should work without doing anything, hopefully that didnt set the airbag off either - not that I am paranoid about the airbag going off!

Check all your basic operations like indicators and high beam functions operate and make sure your car seems ok.

In order to do a road test you'll have to refit your wipes/scuttle panel at this stage, so refit all the items bonnet side, but you can leave the panels off inside in case connections need checking.

In theory you can now drive the car again, but obviously nothing will work cruise wise, or radio (although I never checked as I didnt have a stock radio).

In order to get this to work, you'll need to (or a friend) code in the cruise control option to the system. Most popular software for this is VCDS by Rosstech. I have a genuine cable, not sure if repro cables will work for this.

Having had the battery off its also going to throw a whole load of fault codes up that need resetting.

Start by resetting those before moving on to adding the option of cruise control.

With the laptop plugged in, ignition on, go in to VCDS and follow this sequence:

[Key on]

[Select] - (control modules or something I think was first step)

[01 - Engine]

[Login - 11]

Enter 11463 to activate cruise control

[Do It!]

[Key off]

Unfortunately I didnt take any photos, but it is as straight forward as that.

Now also another thing you can do at this stage with the laptop plugged in is to select the module for the steering wheel (in the same way you selected engine). If you go in to 'Measuring blocks' a new screen comes up and when you press the buttons on the steering wheel, it well tell you which one, I did a check on mine and everything works, including the cancel button that doesnt work to actually cancel the cruise in real operation (to be investigated, but I think it may be an additional cable not present in any of my retrofitted looms). I might see if I can get some photos of this as I want to do some more tests.

With any luck everything has gone ok and you have cruise control and no extra faults come up.

So now you need to go and test it out on the road!

Find somewhere with no traffic and nice long straight roads of 40mph+, turn the stalk switch slider to 'on', which if you have a highline model a green symbol will illuminate on the dash, now by pressing either 'set' on the steering wheel or the button on the end of the stalk (if you used a full cruise stalk like me) should set the current speed, let off the throttle and it should cruise? Not all cars apparently have the cruise light in the speedo, so you have to test this way. Now press the brake slightly, is the car just slowing down like you knocked off the cruise? If yes great. If not there may be a problem, cruise should disable by sliding the stalk switch to off, or a last resort is to turn off the ignition. On some cars you should also be able to use 'cancel' on the steering wheel to do the same, I havent found out why mine doesnt work yet, I'm not sure if a further cable might be required or if it only works on canbus 2002> models with a 451 relay. I'll update this if I find out.

If it seems to work ok, Good Job!

If it doesnt work correctly, the first thing is to plug in VCDS and find out what error code come up, my car had apparently an intermittent brake light switch before I even started so I changed that to avoid any problems.

As an extra, I have since starting the draft for this article also gotten a control box for the radio (I have a kenwood), which is made by a company called Connects2. Its fairly straight forward to fit and I am pleased to say all the buttons work for controlling the stereo (volume/track select). There are currently 2 buttons I dont have use of:

Cancel - I want to check this out, but its not on the cruise stalk either, it may be something for Canbus cars, however checking in VCDS when doing the coding, the software could tell me I was pressing the button, so it is working, just not doing anything.

Theres a button on the back of the steering wheel behind the cruise buttons, I dont know what its for (havent looked it up yet) but I think it might be for answering a telephone. Whatever it is, it doesnt do anything even with my Connects2 adapter box.

Hopefully this instructable made your drive just that bit easier.