Just bought another Aston today
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I find it oddly comforting that your impeccable taste comes with a price. Now I don't feel so bad for lagging so far behind!
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$2000??? What the EFFFFFFF?
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Back in December I covered my airbag in Alcantara as shown in the picture below but, because of the holidays, I never got around to doing the back side of the steering wheel. This meant that, when you looked at the wheel from the top or side, you would see the Alcantara steering column shroud and airbag on either side of the black leather steering wheel which didn't look right.
I finally got around to fixing that mismatch. I always seem to have a spare wheel lying around, so I wrapped one and then swapped it with the one on the car. Below are a few pictures.
Airbag cover:
Airbag cover installed on the leather-backed wheel. You can see a bit of how the leather stands out between the airbag and the shroud. In this picture you can also see how I covered the leather trim at the base of the windshield to match as well.
Starting to cover the spare wheel surface:
Leather wheel and Alcantara wheel side-by-side (sans switchpacks or horn buttons):
Alcantara wheel installed:
In case you're wondering, no, I will not be doing the wheel rim this time around. I find that the Alcantara gets too dirty and its fibers get matted down with my sweaty palms so I decided to stick with the perforated leather on this part.
Cheers.
====
I finally got around to fixing that mismatch. I always seem to have a spare wheel lying around, so I wrapped one and then swapped it with the one on the car. Below are a few pictures.
Airbag cover:
Airbag cover installed on the leather-backed wheel. You can see a bit of how the leather stands out between the airbag and the shroud. In this picture you can also see how I covered the leather trim at the base of the windshield to match as well.
Starting to cover the spare wheel surface:
Leather wheel and Alcantara wheel side-by-side (sans switchpacks or horn buttons):
Alcantara wheel installed:
In case you're wondering, no, I will not be doing the wheel rim this time around. I find that the Alcantara gets too dirty and its fibers get matted down with my sweaty palms so I decided to stick with the perforated leather on this part.
Cheers.
====
Last edited by karlfranz; Apr 30, 2015 at 06:22 PM.
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If you look at the wiring diagrams, you would see how. That being said, the way the black plastic switches (memory or not) drive the seat motors is completely different than with the newer metal switches found on the Rapide, Vanquish and DB9.2.
The plastic ones are really a set of dumb switches. All they do is close the contacts that complete the circuit for the motor to move in forward or reverse.
The metal ones actually encode which switch is pressed in to a serial stream that gets sent to the seat module.
This is why those who have requested getting the metal switches installed instead of the plastic ones have been told it's not possible by the factory and dealers.
My workaround was to bypass the electronics on the metal switches to convert it into a dumb switch. I cut the traces on the circuit board that lead to the switches and soldered individual wires to the contacts on each switch. I then brought those out of the box into a connector that matches the plastic switch.
I did this a few months ago, but never got around to installing them in the car because I got busy with too many other projects. Removing and replacing the seat switches is a bit of a pain because you have to remove, not only the center console, but all of the dash trim as well. The reason is that the switches attach to the two leather trim pieces that flank the sides of the center console from the center speaker, down the waterfall fascia, and past the ashtray. The screws that hold those pieces are hidden below all the other trim pieces so it's a big jigsaw puzzle. I have taken all those pieces off Astons for other projects before and it's not at all difficult; just very time consuming.
I'll post more details in a couple of months when I get around to it.
The plastic ones are really a set of dumb switches. All they do is close the contacts that complete the circuit for the motor to move in forward or reverse.
The metal ones actually encode which switch is pressed in to a serial stream that gets sent to the seat module.
This is why those who have requested getting the metal switches installed instead of the plastic ones have been told it's not possible by the factory and dealers.
My workaround was to bypass the electronics on the metal switches to convert it into a dumb switch. I cut the traces on the circuit board that lead to the switches and soldered individual wires to the contacts on each switch. I then brought those out of the box into a connector that matches the plastic switch.
I did this a few months ago, but never got around to installing them in the car because I got busy with too many other projects. Removing and replacing the seat switches is a bit of a pain because you have to remove, not only the center console, but all of the dash trim as well. The reason is that the switches attach to the two leather trim pieces that flank the sides of the center console from the center speaker, down the waterfall fascia, and past the ashtray. The screws that hold those pieces are hidden below all the other trim pieces so it's a big jigsaw puzzle. I have taken all those pieces off Astons for other projects before and it's not at all difficult; just very time consuming.
I'll post more details in a couple of months when I get around to it.
