I think all Pandas and 500 have had, or will at some point get the dreaded wrinkly steering, where the lamination starts to peel and wrinkle from the leather. if your car is out of warranty, and want a suggestion of a cheap fix (cost me nowt), which you may or may not like ..read on. be warned takes a good half to a full day to do.

My 100hp started to wrinkle about a year ago, I lived with it, but its got so bad, and not having funds to buy another or get recovered, I looked at what i could do. I took a brave step in trying to remove all of the lamination, as i noticed that where it had peeled off, there was a nice bit of leather beneth.

Tools needed.
Heat gun/hair dryer may work
dremel (or copy) with sanding barrel attachment
800-1200 grade wet and dry sand paper
alcohol cleaner (or white spirit)
Leather cream/conditioner

I recco most blokes have the above in their shed.

firstly stage 1, start by using heat gun on outside edge leading to the front of wheel on a medium heat, working in small sections, as it bubbles, simply rub off DO NOT DO INNER OF WHEEL WITH HEAT GUN OR YOU WILL MELT THE STITCHING !!.

next Stage 2, fire up the dremel, and carefully sand the lamanation off from the inside of the wheel, starting away from the stitching, finishing where your peeling of stage 1 stopped. the fronts of the spokes are the same, as is the rear of the wheel. (although I did not do the rear of the spokes, but you may) Again KEEP SANDER AWAY FROM STICHING !.

once you are happy that all the accessable lamination is off (and dont panick it this stage as it will look shocking. Stage 3, using a rough grade of wet and dry, and working down to a smooth grades, sand the areas you have been over (take your time) it will start to look good.

Stage 4, there will be a glue residue left over, so use a alcohol cleaner of simular to clean areas, get to a level where there is almost no trace of this glue.

Stage 4. with all the heat and rubbing, you need to feed the leather again, I used some auto glym leather treatment, followed by leather wax, apply loads and let it soak in.

thats it your done. I personally just done the dimpled areas only, and left the original smooth areas top and bottom, thus giving a 2 tone black/grey wheel. I MUST SAY IT FEELS LOVEEEEELLLYYYY.

Certainly looks ok

The same thing happened to my steering wheel, looked and felt a right mess. After contacting a few different smart repairers and having been told that it can't be repaired, I got in touch with Trimline Systems (in the Stockton-On-Tees area) who said he should be able to repair it. He did a great job, sanded down the damaged areas and applied this new surface finish spray to them, after a lot of sanding he re coloured the leather. It's been fine ever since. I think it was around £80 ish although it was a couple years ago.

Interesting post, though not the easiest thing to do. My son had a Citroen C2 with the same delamination. We took the wheel off and replaced it with a bog standard C2 'rubber' wheel (and then sold the old one on ebay - whoo hoo).

I blamed his proficient use of aftershave/men's product for causing the delamination. Boy that coating was thin.

I started to peel the 'leather' off, like Craig T Nelson did to his face in the 1982 shlock-horror film, Poltergeist. I Gave up after a short while.

Cheapo bi-cast leather. I bet your BMW has high-class hide on the wheel, so that it can take 10cc of Old Spice before the sales meeting starts.

ABC

A - Always
B - Be
C - Closing

I've got nearly 50k miles on my 500 and the wheel is still perfect.