After driving other cars with nice thick leather steering wheel, I finally decided to do something about the vinyl
steering wheel in my mini S.

After some research, doing a JCW steering wheel swap are just too expensive, and I ended up buying one of
the (fake) leather wrap from eBay and put it in my car.

I didn't have high hope for this $20 solution, but it turn out okay.
It is not as nice as the GP wheel or the JCW wheel, but it feel so much better than grapping on the hard
vinyl surface of the stock wheel.

On instructional video in Youtube suggested doing the stitching in 3 sections, but I just did it in just one.

The installation was very easy, just took some time.
It took me about 1 hour to finish. Once I stitched up half the wheel, the
thread gotten shorter, and it was really fast and easy to finish the rest.


One thing I don't like is that the wide of the leather wasn't wide enough to cover the wheel.
There is a thin gap between the seam that expose the inner wheel.

I felt that I may not have done it right.

Maybe I should have used a heat gun and stetch the leather to meet at the seam. I will try that if I have to redo again.

Overall, I think it come out better than I expected, and the feel is soft and added some thickness to
the steering wheel.

 

Very nice! Looks good.

 

It looks good but I'm pretty sure it's upside down. :(

 

Yes, i did it on purpose.

I didn't like the way the outside red thread was showing too much,
so I rotated it.

I think there is too much RED now.
I should get one that is BLACK with RED stitch on the inside only.