Steering wheel controls dead

[MarkJC]

I have a '99 Grand Prix with steering wheel radio controls that have been acting up recently. When it began, the volume would go up on its own randomly, as if the volume button on the steering wheel was stuck. It happened so infrequently that I couldn't really pin down the cause, but turning the steering wheel may have been a trigger for it.

Well, today it came to a head. The volume stuck repeatedly and then all steering wheel controls completely died - not just the volume control on the right side of the wheel, but also the buttons on the left side.

At first I thought about just replacing the controls on the right side of the wheel (volume, play, mute.) But seeing as how the left side controls (seek, etc) are also dead, now i'm thinking something else is causing this. Do you have any idea what the problem could be or how I might go about fixing it?

[BillBoost37]

All those controls feed one wire. That one wire carries the resistance value of the button pressed to the radio.

Sounds a little like either one of the controls messed up and is causing none to work or that theres an issue before or after them.

[MarkJC]

The radio controls are still dead, but today I noticed that the volume problem is still occurring. While driving, sometimes turning, the volume suddenly quickly increases to max. This, even while none of the volume control buttons on the steering wheel are working.

If the buttons are dead, how can the volume still be going up on its own?

[Corona99GT]

I had a similar problem the other day I was going to work when suddenly the volume went to max I tried using the wheel controls but no luck then tried the radio started to go down but came right back up. So I figured it was the wheel control, So I pulled over and preyed the control out and disconnected. Now I was able to bring the volume down. What I also noticed is that if the volume control pod on the wheel is disconnected the seek side does not work but if its the other way around volume pod still works.

In my case it was the little volume up button that broke and got stuck on vol. up. just went to a junkyard and pulled the controls off another car.

All solved now, and with an extra set of pods for spare parts. To bad bulbs on both are burnt out I'll try and switch to LED see if it's not to hard due to space issues.

[MarkJC]

Thanks for the info - sounds exactly like my problem. That gives me hope that it's just the right side controls and replacing those will fix everything. Was re-connecting the new volume pod to the wiring very difficult to do? Or does it basically snap right in?

[Corona99GT]

It does just snap in but it is a little difficult cause wire on there are really short. Well it took me between 5 and 10 min. just to plug the wires back in. Easy to unplug hard to plug back in.

O and make sure there plugged in correctly otherwise they won't work.

[MarkJC]

Thanks for the tips. I did the repair yesterday and sure enough, it was just that single volume control that was causing both sides to fail. I had to loosen the cover behind the wheel to get to the wires initially by taking out the two torx screws. The wires were wrapped around an edge that was making them so short that I couldn't even pull the volume control far enough out to see the wires. After I pryed the wire bundled off of that edge, it gave an extra 3 inches or so to work with and that was all I needed.