Upgrading to factory steering wheel controls

[spencer_harrison]

Hello everyone. I just bought my first Mazda 3, a 2012 hatchback in white. Absolutely in love with the car but it is a base model and I am looking to upgrade the stereo a bit to hopefully gain bluetooth and some steering wheel controls.
The steering wheel in the car has no buttons on it at all and looking online the higher optioned cars had quite a few features built into the steering wheel.
I have been trying to research online with no success if it is possible to swap out the steering wheel, clock spring, and head unit with another Mazda. I am a licensed mechanic and used to work for Nissan. Nissan was very lazy with their wiring harnesses and a lot of plug and play was possible due to the wiring being there just tucked out of the way.
With all of your experience is this possible or is it better to just go full aftermarket.
Thanks everyone and apologies if this has been posted befoee

[G ~ MINI]

Hello everyone. I just bought my first Mazda 3, a 2012 hatchback in white. Absolutely in love with the car but it is a base model and I am looking to upgrade the stereo a bit to hopefully gain bluetooth and some steering wheel controls.
The steering wheel in the car has no buttons on it at all and looking online the higher optioned cars had quite a few features built into the steering wheel.
I have been trying to research online with no success if it is possible to swap out the steering wheel, clock spring, and head unit with another Mazda. I am a licensed mechanic and used to work for Nissan. Nissan was very lazy with their wiring harnesses and a lot of plug and play was possible due to the wiring being there just tucked out of the way.
With all of your experience is this possible or is it better to just go full aftermarket.
Thanks everyone and apologies if this has been posted befoee

I also drive a 2012 white GX (sedan) .
When i upgraded my Steering to the corksport i dont recall if the wiring was there to support Bluetooth on the GX.

It may require upgrading /swapping in a GT wiring and radio ( salvage yard ) .

[Dubwize]

Wiring harness should be the same between trims.
That said you would need the BT module on top of the new head unit. afaik they are separate.

The easier route is to get a aftermarket headunit that has BT and wifi etc, etc, all built in. If you decide down the road you want the steering wheel controls, then you can upgrade that and get a canbus decoder (axxess, etc) to make the controls work.