W124 sportline steering wheel vs. standard
 

Hello,

Could anyone please tell me the differences between the steering wheels. Is it diameter, location of spokes, thickness of wheel. If the sport is indeed thicker, doe it "feel" better?
How hard is it to swap the wheels, danger with the airbag, etc.?

Smaller diameter, different airbag.

39 cm diameter
Non-Airbag

http://i4.ebayimg.com/03/i/06/a4/e7/af_1_b.JPG

With Airbag
http://i13.ebayimg.com/01/i/06/98/2b/8c_1_b.JPG

The rims of the wheels are nicely padded, a bit more than the OEM boat wheel
Once disconnected from the battery, the airbag is fairly safe.
You will need a torx driver to remove the bag via screws on the backside of the wheel.

Then the fun part. There is a 10mm allen head screw that holds the wheel onto the center column. There's a huge torque spec on that screw. Two remove, you will need a good sized breaker bar, have a helper hold the steering wheel and make sure the ignition is not in the locked position. Counterclockwise to loosen. You will never forget the sound that the thread-locked screw makes when it come loose.

For the US market, the sport wheel on that car is the same one used in the 500E. It has a smaller diameter, thicker rim, and the bottom spokes are cloer together, It looks very much like the non-airbag Euro wheel pictured above, except that it does indeed have an airbag.

THanks everyone, I think I just lucked onto a sport wheel with airbag, just need to get it here now from the German Ebay (artikel: 8049757462)!