recently picked up a 98 and am having trouble replacing things in my car.

i went to a pick a part and pulled off black bezels for power windows (all 4 sides), as well as a steering wheel and airbag (wanted to swap tan for leather).

to my surprise, none of these parts fit. the harnesses were different for all the parts. when looking to replace these parts, i looked on ebay and found listings for 98-02 parts and it seems like its 50/50. sometimes these harnesses match, but sometimes they dont. weird thing is, even the toyota parts website says they should match

Steering Wheel Air Bag | Part #4513035361C0 | Toyota Auto Parts (98)
Steering Wheel Air Bag | Part #4513035361C0 | Toyota Auto Parts (99)

do different trims have different harnesses for parts? is there a certain year where harnesses were switched and there is a certain year range i should be looking for to ensure part compatability? maybe i pulled the parts off the wrong year car (i didn't double check and just trusted the inventory list). the steering wheel i bought only had 2 spokes, which i think is for older than 98?

96-98,99-2k,01-02 with carry over on some things.
Search by VIN TOYOTA | Japan Parts EU find part click on part # drop box tells what years used.

hmm, even running my vin on the website gives me this page for the steering wheel
TOYOTA 4RUNNERVZN185L-GKPZKA - POWERTRAIN-CHASSIS - STEERING WHEEL | Japan Parts EU
however, when i bought the car it had a different wheel, something like this (2 spoke vs 4)



the wheel i bought actually looks like the one mentioned in the parts list, but for the srs airbag harness doesnt fit (look completely different between the two). i guess its possible the previous owner switched out the clockspring, and the airbag harness changed with it but this whole mess has got me super confused.

That photo is what your 4runner would of had, only the 96-97 had the 2 spoke wheel.

Airbags in 4runners made from 1996-1998.X had an earlier airbag that deployed with high force no matter what, so it was potentially dangerous to small occupants in a crash. I say 1998.X because we don't know exactly when this airbag was phased out. This means 4 spoke wheels can be found with either airbag.

1998.X-2002 had a newer style that could control the deployment force based on factors like crash force and speed. However, even after 1998 changes were still made. For example, around 2001 Toyota added passenger detection, meaning there are at least 3 different air bag connectors.

Your best bet is to swap your old airbag to your new wheel. If you cant do this or are uncomfortable with this, your next best option is to check the month your 4runner was made in 1998. The best estimation we have is this airbag change happened in mid-1998.

yeah i figured there was some switch mid 1998, since i see both airbags available on 98 wheels.

i agree with switching out my airbag, maybe i can just use the new to me (2 spoke) wheel and get a replacement airbag that fits the harness properly. should there be a problem fitting either airbag into the 2 spoke design?

Don't know, looking at photos of the 2 wheels there are some changes to the shape and size. Unless you really like the older wheel, I'd stick with 4 spoke wheel because you know the airbag in your car works with it.

One thing about airbags is they have to come out through the wheel. When the designers of the 2 spoke wheel were designing it to break away for an airbag, did they account for an airbag that doesn't deploy at full power every time? Did the airbags come through the wheel in the same place? I don't know, but those are your questions to answer.

What about a 99 that was manufactured 09/98 :P

Alright, cracked this wide open. The shift from gen 1 to 2 airbags happened between July 19, 1997 and August 1997.

Here is specimen 1, a very late 1997 model made in 7/97 (listing). If you look up its vin (JT3HN87RXV0128670) you'll find no driver airbag since Toyota no longer sells gen 1 airbags for it.


Here is specimen 2, a very early 1998 model made in 8/98 (listing), the next month. If you look up its vin (JT3HN86R5W0132127) you'll see an airbag available (45130-35361-C0). This is a gen 2 airbag because if you look up even late 1999 models, it is the same one.

I arrived at July 19 because my 4runner is a very late 98 model, made after 7/19/98 (a part still had a sticker giving the exact date). So Toyota would change model year production very late in the month, if not at the end of the month.

It's likely that all 1998 used gen 2 airbags, not just some of them. Though IIHS says changes were made beginning with MY1998 and 1999, and the old part number for 1997 airbags supposedly fit 1998 4runners, but I have yet to see one that used it.

@Pyral that's cracking it wide open! Should be added to Info page.

@trashboy That got deep quick.

i just looked at my side sticker and it says it has a production date of 04/98, which should put it well past the gen 1/2 switch. the plug looks something like the one below. i guess buying a 99 steering wheel and airbag would be the best bet, but even the ones i found on ebay for 98-02 have a plug that doesnt look like the one i have.

so confusing..

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yeah thats a good point.. i hopefully just wanted to get black itnerior trim like wheels/bezels but this is turning out to be a bit of a headache.

maybe i could just throw on a clockspring that has a matching harness.. not sure if there would be problems elsewhere tho or if using an older clockspring would mess with stuff like the airbag deployment

Parts tree being picked a long time doesn't help matters.

So you're trying to swap the four spoke for a two spoke, or what?

I swapped in 96 airbag and steering wheel in my 98 almost three years ago, and YOU NEED the clockspring from the donor for everything to work.