Have a 7AT? The best $2 mod ever!
 

When I got my 7AT in December one of the first things I noticed was the heavy resistance and long travel of the paddle shifters. Now maybe Im spoiled coming from an E60 M5, whos SMG paddles were short travel, and required very little effort, but I feel these paddles could use some improvement.

Well here is the fix ladies and gentlemen...$2 3M rubber bumpers! Stick these little suckers on the back of the paddles (right where the bumpers would make contact with the steering column plastic) and viola! Very little travel and almost no effort to upshift/downshift now. These basically take up the slack on the paddles and in turn reduce the "heavy" feeling and long travel. Give it a try...you'll love it! The tranny even seems more responsive (placebo obviously) because it seems to have a more immediate feeling to the paddle selection. You can even file down the bumpers a bit if you want a bit more travel.

These are what I used, they are .14" thick --> Shop 3M: 3M Self-Stick Rubber Pads, 751ES, Clear

http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n...ket_36868_.jpg

Installed...one on each side...

http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n...ket_36866_.jpg
http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n...ket_36867_.jpg

Cool, thanks.

Cool Idea I might have to try this :)



DAN

ordered !

Go to your local office supply store or ace. Lol

About how much travel is left now after mod? Reason I ask is that I hope it is not too close to the actual shift trip point of the paddle that could accidently change the gears.

Nice mod. Repped

Creative.

I don't know I like the feel of the paddles. and resistance? I flip them barely using a finger, its like a gentle stroke :roflpuke2:

Nice job OP.

I know know there is nothing that 3M doesn't have a solution for :icon17:

I was concerned about this as well but the thickness of this particular bumper worked like a charm the first time. Honestly, I think it is as close to the "trip" point as you want to be, any thicker and the paddles probably wouldnt engage. There is no slop any more, very little travel and barely any effort. If feels very similar to the BMW SMG/DCT paddle setup in regards to resistance and travel now. Ive been driving a few days on these bumpers and am stoked the difference a couple bucks made:tup:

And yes you dont need to order these, I got mine at CVS! most any office supply store should have them.

Sweet. I'll have to give this a try!

Thinking outside the box! Good idea! Going to give try it.

Patent?...... How bout ... "The Jmlenz Pad"

haha maybe your on to something Ztoon! I should become a vendor and sell em for 3 bucks:bowrofl:

Incredible.. A $2 short-throw-shifter for the 7AT... Great job man.. :tup:

I'm gonna convert my Z from MT to AT just to do this.......... :ugh2:

They seemed to thick too me, zero travel left, I was afraid it was tripping the switch though I didn't test it. Stacked some thinner ones with a cork one on top to leave a little travel.

Still made a nice improvement though I bought ten kinds of bumpers :)

But the 3M bumpers cut in half and stacked made a great spacer for my interior LEDs so they didn't touch the white lens.

does this mod work for 6spd manual?


Just kidding :)

Neat. I might try this too...

okay got it, i think its abit way too thick LOL

I just put them on my 2010 roadster.. and I gotta say.. it works,, pretty well!!.. nice short action!!. thanks for the tip!!

I think someone should make a special sensor in the visor that allows you to shift gears using your eyes. wink right eye=upshift, wink left eye=downshift. those would be some fast and effortless gear changes. only downside is you have to drive around like::eek:

seriously tho, nice job/idea

great idea

Glad it worked out for you. You could of just filed down the bumper with a file to get your desired thickness. There is hardly any travel left with the ones I used but they still engage 100% of the time. Still loving it!

I used 2 cents to fix my trunk and now 2 dollars to improve my paddle shifter. It doesn't get any better than this.

Thanks for the great idea.

Awesome! Ive bitched in the past about the clunky feel of the paddles while shifting. Thanks!

It could be worth a few hundreds in the 1/4 mile.
Great mod.
Z

Good idea! Def gonna try this out. :tup:

It works for 6MT bro! you should try it! :) loool

I bought the exact same bumpers from 3M but after I put them on...there is no room for the paddles to click or move at all....I am sure it's the same thickness bumpers cos the shop told me there is only one thickness for 3M...any ideas?

sweet..

.

Razor blade and cut them to the thickness you want... It's just rubber

I don't have an auto tranny, but I'm definitely going to do this on my CSR wheel that I have for my sim rig. Rep'd

Sub'd to try.

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 2

Such a knee slapper :driving:

Just saw this thread, might have to try this.

Noticed that it looks like your picture from the driver's side of the wheel that you have a switch with up, down, left, right. Is this something from the Nav package or power adjustable steering wheel?

interesting..now where exactly do they mount on the paddles?..in the pics it looks like its half way hiting the black frame/console and halfway not touching it?

thats a terrible description,but any clarification would be sweet

I haven't done this mod, but, going by the pics and description, it looks like the bumpers are stuck on the side facing the front of the car (not the driver) of the paddle so that the "console" edge bisects the top of the bumper when the bumper is resting against that edge.
So, yeah, in a way, it's "half hitting" the edge of the housing.

Another way of saying it: The rubber piece doesn't stop the paddle from its full motion of travel. Instead, it rests further ahead, so it actually *starts* further out and thus doesn't have to travel as much overall.

For a while, I thought this mod would stop the paddle earlier, but that's backwards. :) It starts it out closer to the shift point.

gave this a shot and didn't like it. the paddles lose the tactile click