I have found it to be a nice edition since I suffer seriously cold hands due to diabetes. One thing, the Honda heated steering wheel is not very hot. It does warm your hands, but I found the Ford's heated steering wheel to be far more useful since it heats up quite a bit more. I still feel this upgrade was worth it in the end.

 

Fair warning, once you get one car with a heated steering wheel you will never want anything else.

 

This is a fascinating upgrade. I have Raynauld’s Syndrome, which is a lack of control of blood vessel constriction in hands and feet that lead to them being starved of blood/oxygen in cold weather, causing pain, numbness and generally just feeling way colder than outside temps would suggest. A heated steering wheel sounds like a lovely way to offset this issue! Living in Florida, I’m not sure if it’s worth the money but this is VERY tempting.

 

So last week the temperatures dropped down and it motivated me enough to stop trying to be cheap and hope that the price of the wheel would come down.

Anywho, just finished installing the wheel and here are my thoughts...

- I am a big proponent of you do not need to take it to the dealer or mechanic, it is easy enough... but wow, they went a bit overboard with torquing the mount bolt for the steering wheel on my car. If you do not own an impact driver, it would be cheaper to have someone else do it unless you have a friend with one. Outside of that mount bolt, takes a 10MM hex socket, everything else are fairly common household tools.

- The instructions may say 1 hour install time. I would like to meet the mechanic who can actually do this job in an hour. Or maybe I just suck.

- Following the last point, it helps if you hook up the plug. Funny how it does not work without that.

- Zero issues with the splines, lined up and slid in place with zero effort.

- No clue why the steering wheel ships with a piece of paper saying the toe must be checked after install as changing a steering wheel does not affect that. Would be curious as to why, maybe Accords are put together by drunk monkeys and they have had problems.

- Compared to other vehicles I have driven, I agree that it does not get as hot. Still works great and I love the once I have used it.

- The new "body cover" does not exactly line up with the old pieces. It is probably supposed to, but it does not.

- The harness is either too short or too long for the Insight depending on your point of view. Not a big deal, it just does not look as pretty as it could hidden under all that stuff. The only thing is there is a ground wire with the wire harness and I had to make it about 4 inches longer to reach an existing ground point on the car. There are several other places you could mount that wire and it would work fine, but they are not dedicated ground studs.

- First time disconnecting the battery, even though I am sure I should have plenty of other times. It sucks. I had to remove the battery to get the positive terminal off due to no cleareance. Not sure why the instructions tell you to only disconnect the negative terminal as you are always supposed to disconnect the positive first and only doing the negative is a very, very good way to die.

 

Well it's only 1 hour of work to install so if you get a good dealer with better knowledge the install shouldn't cost much more than $100. The wheel package itself isn't all that expensive either. Heated steering is more of a luxury item for most and I can see why some people would find it way too expensive for what they get. It's one of those things where once you've tried it on a cold day you'll miss not having it on any other car your drive. For me it's an essential item due to bad circulation in the hands.

 

I mean, it did cost about $550 from start to finish on mine. That's a lot of money to spend on something as silly as a heated wheel. I can understand why some folks wouldn't be interested in doing that.

 

Ooops, did my post get moved ?

I thought I was commenting on a thread that dealt with Insight owners going to great expense to add electric-heated steering wheels to their LX and EX models. My post seems out of place here.

 

Yeah, at least one of the moderators might be a tad bit massively OCD, but hey, a place for everything. Anywho, if $300 is a "great expense", perhaps car ownership is not for you. Also, I take it you have never had a heated steering wheel, so nice.

 

Got my heated wheel installed yesterday. I like the darker stitching on the Accord wheel. Thanks to those who took the plunge early and let me know this was a possibility. Looks like I can get about $100 for my old leather wheel so that'll be a nice way to recoup some $$. Price for install was ~$200.

 

Did dealer service install for you, and if so, did they give you any flak for wanting to install Accord steering wheel on an Insight?

 

I spoke to my service advisor again today about something unrelated (my new license plates arrived). I inquired again if there were any issues with the wheel installation and he brought up two that I want to pass on.

With the wheel being designed for an Accord instead of an Insight, the splines did not line up exactly the same. The Tech had to adjust the toe after installing the wheel. And the attachment points for the wiring harnesses were not the same so the Tech had to route it slightly differently.

Neither issue was a major deal but I wanted to pass that along.

 

Next question: If I ever did this, would my old wheel fit my wife's Civic. I do not like her wheel's controls!

 

Thank you for updating us on this!

 

I just picked my car up. The heated wheel works great. It doesn't get quite as warm as the one in my Jeep Grand Cherokee did but it still feels nice. It is about 50 degrees here right now so it might feel even warmer when the weather is colder.

I drove for about 30 minutes after getting the car and the heat stayed on the entire time. I'm not sure if it turns off eventually like the heated seats do. It does turn off when you turn off the ignition and does not come on automatically. It also does not come on with the remote start. I would estimate it takes about 30 seconds to start feeling the heat when you do turn it on. As you can see by the picture, there is an indicator light that shows when the heat is on.

Overall I am extremely happy. I ended up paying $288 for the wheel and $199 for the install. I would absolutely do it again and would recommend it to anyone. I wonder why Honda doesn't offer it as an official accessory. From reading the instructions, it seems to be pretty plug and play. The dealership did not have any issues with the installation.

Good luck if you go forward with this. I think you will all be very happy with this one.

 

Overall I am extremely happy. I ended up paying $288 for the wheel and $199 for the install. I would absolutely do it again and would recommend it to anyone. I wonder why Honda doesn't offer it as an official accessory. From reading the instructions, it seems to be pretty plug and play. The dealership did not have any issues with the installation.

Was the part ordered thru the dealership? If not, a bit surprising, as dealers usually won't install parts that they haven't sourced. How long did it take for the dealer to install? Seems like maybe just over 1 hour, based on the install pricing.

Could you also share the specific part number that you ordered and had success with, per Verdier's previous suggestion?

From comments in the Accord forum, it sounds like the on/off control is by driver (not automatic off) and having the steering wheel heat during remote start is possible - Accord forum - heated steering wheel

 

Also, the stitching is dark Grey on the new wheel.

 

The steering wheel arrived today. It does not have any of the controls or the paddles. They all need to be transferred from your existing wheel. The only control it comes with is the button to turn on the heated wheel. That button will reside at the bottom of the wheel between the two spokes.

 

When complete please let me know the exact part numbers you used and if you needed to order anything else. Thanks. Assuming I have any money left I'll do this upgrade myself and try to film it.

 

I'm pumped for this to be a thing. I'll cross my fingers for you Wandatin!

 

Did they remove the HUD button? I thought the Accord one had one of those.

 

Only the Accord Touring trim has the head up display, so only that steering wheel part gets the extra HUD display control buttons. All other Accord trims have the 'standard' controls, which resemble those on the Insight.

Accord Touring right side buttons (w/ HUD control) = part # 36770-TVA-A21
Accord (all other) right side buttons (w/ standard controls) = part # 36770-TVA-A11

 

Here is a photo from after the install was complete. They also confirmed it can be installed on an EX trim as well. If you pull off the lower panel and see the circled connection point, the steering wheel will work.

 

I found a Facebook posting where someone did the installation and it worked just fine. I've ordered the wheel so I'll keep you updated.

 

Could you share the facebook link, or text from the post?

 

Thanks for those links. Those are the ones I had found while searching, including the reddit link. I may have to give it a try when I get my Insight. I'll report back if I do.

 

I will be interested to see if the BCM works with the heated steering wheel. Please report back. I'm assuming the parts you guys are referring to are the Honda Accord heated steering wheel with necessary parts. It's identical to the insight's except for the heat obviously.

 

You're right - it's just been mentioned/suggested in a few places, but haven't seen anyone report on completion.

• Accord heated steering wheel - Things I Would Change
• Leather wrap steering wheel - New 2019 Insight EX Owner

There's brief mention in the following reddit thread that someone made the swap. And a Honda parts/service manager commented that everything (wiring, relay, switch) should be included in the heated steering wheel kit.

• www.reddit.com/r/Honda/comments/a1mn3j/2019_insight_heated_steering_wheel/

The part number from the 2018-2020 Accord is # 08U97-TVA-110A and runs ~$300 with tax.

 

Be very careful about this. I looked into it for my touring, and while all the parts fit, Adam looked at the final hookup and said it might not work properly since there are several data line hookups. The concern he has is the fact the insight bcm may not have heated steering programming in it and the wheel may not switch heat on and off appropriately without causing the possibility of an overheat. The fact that the insight doesn't even offer heated steering as an option leads to this concern. Another problem is the cost of the parts isn't worth the chance it won't work since once you open them Honda won't take them back. If anyone here does try it and it works please let me know since I would do this upgrade for my cold diabetic hands. The wheel and the parts are just too expensive of a gamble considering the diagram shows it may not work properly without coding in the BCM.