Paddle shifter install on tiptronic - write up

As I mentioned in another post, I am doing a write up on installing paddle shifters on my 2000 C2 cab tiptronic. There is a nice thread at: http://911uk.com/viewtopic.php?t=97582 but I thought the wiring part was a bit confusing and there were some steps that were skipped, plus I wanted to keep my tiptronic buttons functional. Firstly, I bought a set of Mercedes Benz Paddle Shifters PN: [phone removed] brand new off eBay for $148.97 shipped.

I disconnected battery and waited 15 minutes to prevent airbag discharge. I removed the plugs from behind steering wheel and unbolted the airbag with T-27 torx socket; I then pulled off the airbag and pulled the yellow airbag plug straight off the airbag unit.

I removed the steering wheel nut with a 24mm (15/16�) socket and then marked the position of the steering wheel on spline before pulling the steering wheel off. I took a pic of the wiring to refer to when finished, to ensure that the wiring was correct at reassembly.

Removed the aluminum horn plate: (3) T-27 torx bolts

I made a paper template from the bottom of the paddle shifters and transferred the shape to the steering wheel with a permanent marker. The template and resultant hole should be smaller than the widest part of the paddle for the best fit.

I used a Dremel with a small grinder attachment to grind out a hole about 1 cm deep and then trimmed for the best fit. This was a bit messy and the paddle did not fit flush until it was �bolted in� in the next step.

Using a washer and a nut as spacer on each paddle, I used a self-tapping screw to install the paddles. As per the 911UK.com forum thread, the nut spacer shown on the bottom of the washer helps to push out the foam for a flusher install. Once I was satisfied with the installation of the paddles, I reinstalled the horn plate.

Here is a pic of the wiring that needed to be done. Essentially I cut the wires for the Tip buttons and used three butt connectors to splice in the wires from the paddles; each paddle has a power wire and a ground wire. The first splice connects the yellow wire from the downshift paddle shifter to the yellow/brown wire; the second connects the blue wire from the upshift paddle shifter to the brown/red wire and the third connects the two black�ground wires (one from each the paddles) to the existing ground wire. After this pic was taken, I realized that the original cut ground wire from the Tip buttons needed to be spliced in also, so there should be four black wires going into that particular connector.

Initial impressions after driving with the paddle shifters: They are much more intuitive for spirited driving and easier to find on a turn. The buttons which still work, seem quite small by comparison and are harder to find. I may convert these buttons to stereo volume/channel buttons down the line along with a new touch screen double DIN unit, but that depends on whether or not I decide to sell this car at the end of this year. There are also paddle extensions available on from various sellers on eBay in a variety of colors that fit these particular paddles.

Thank you for this write up!

Nice job! Great write up. A friend of mine wants to keep his buttons too and this will help him do so. Thanks

I love your write ups. Very thorough. I don't have the patience to document to that level. Probably the reason why I don't like corporate gigs. I'm assuming no issues on accidentally hitting the stock buttons at anytime you're using the paddles in a spirited way?

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No issues whatsoever. I'm glad I did this project... I very much prefer the paddles to the buttons. The total time to completion was about 3-4 hours.

Great write up Vince, I was waiting for this one. I plan to tackle a similar job, but most likely will opt to use a D-shape steering wheel. Since you have already completed the install and have been inside the wheel, what are your thoughts on the difficulty of transferring the wiring to a non-tip wheel? Would it even be possible? Thanks.

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That shouldn't be difficult at all. Take a look at the red arrow in the below pic; that is a plug that comes apart. The right side of the plug goes out of the steering wheel to the transmission. The left side comes from the Tip buttons, so splice into there (check the 911UK.com link I posted above, as he did it that way). The only other thing to consider is that you should have grounding points inside the new steering wheel for the existing wiring.

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For clarification, let me also add that the 7 or so wires you see going into that plug in the center right is actually plugged into the hub on the steering column... that plug is actually going through a hole in the steering wheel. With the exception of the tip button wiring, there aren't any wires in the steering wheel itself.

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Awesome. I appreciate the photo and description. That certainly boosts my confidence level when it comes to getting around to this wheel swap and being sure that it will work. Now the only problem is finding a silver D-shaped wheel that will accept my 996 airbag. I really can't imagine a black wheel would look good with a silver interior.

Now you can shift your car 4 different way ALL AT ONCE!

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lol, I count six ways.

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Sweet baby Jeebus!!

[QUOTE=Vince124;13201058]Here is a pic of the wiring that needed to be done. Essentially I cut the wires for the Tip buttons and used three butt connectors to splice in the wires from the paddles; each paddle has a power wire and a ground wire. The first splice connects the yellow wire from the downshift paddle shifter to the yellow/brown wire; the second connects the blue wire from the upshift paddle shifter to the brown/red wire and the third connects the two black�ground wires (one from each the paddles) to the existing ground wire. After this pic was taken, I realized that the original cut ground wire from the Tip buttons needed to be spliced in also, so there should be four black wires going into that particular The downshift paddle has a blue wire and the upshift has a yellow wire, so what hooks to what???

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[QUOTE=MasonWilson;13527332] Exactly as quoted above: - yellow wire from the downshift paddle shifter to the yellow/brown wire - blue wire from the upshift paddle shifter to the brown/red wire

Excellent documentation on your project! Thanks so much for posting this how to. Now that time has passed are you satisfied with the MB paddles? Any problems? Did you install extenders or find them unnecessary. One other question re the screw which holds the paddle. Does it screw into plastic or metal on the back side of the paddle? Wondering how delicate that mount point may be. Thanks again!

Can these be added to a non-tip steering wheel? i.e remove the tip steering wheel and put a non-tip steering wheel in a tip car? The MB paddle shifters install with no additional parts? SORRY just saw post 15 which explains it!

Old thread, but does anyone fancy a side project of making one for me? I'd be happy to pay. I suck at DIY and I know I'd screw it up and wire reverse in first

Dont be intimidated. It an easy mod. I did this to my Mustang and the Porsche. Just need a steady hand with the dremel.

if it were computer code, I'd do it in a heartbeat. I guess I'm being a little lazy as I'm barely home - flying between Dallas and Vegas.

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Take the wheel without the airbag and a dremell with you and work on it in the hotel room.

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Yup - that easy. I would get a new wheel without the tip switches as you won't need them anymore. Then keep that as you good wheel and you can practice on the tip wheel with your dremel. If you really want someone to do it for you, it would be expensive, especially if you don't supple the parts. You are paying someone for their time, and I don't think anyone would charge minimum wage. Just not worth it.

I've been holding off too. Seems a bit scary. But it should make shifting a whole lot more fun sans the buttons.

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How often are you actually using these buttons?

The only thing I can complain about is that paddles sit too far inboard . Need to reach in to touch them. But way better than the switches.

I travel a lot for business I have the weight and my stuff down to a science no roller bags. Taking a Dremel and a wheel is going to throw me off balance at the airport that and I'll be tempted to walk around with the wheel in front of me honking at people to get out of the way, or making Porsche sounds as I pass people.

In all honesty, I can't even remember the last time I let my Tip shift itself. I pull it straight to "M" every time. I have the paddles and still have the buttons also. It is so easy to shift gears, it has become second-nature. It can be done with one hand , either hand with the buttons , or both hands using the paddles.So much easier than shifting a manual gearbox, but the manual does have that little bit of gratitude in performing the gear change for us gearheads.

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You manually shift your automatic every time you drive it? You've got to be the 0.1% of owners that do this. The rest drive their automatics in auto mode all the time except when they want to show off to friends.

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Yes, every time I drive it goes into manual mode. I figured there was not many who drove like this, but it is so easy I really don't see why not. The only time my Tip shifts itself is at red-line,(on purpose) even in manual mode it will shift at red-line if you hit the paddle/button too late or forget to shift. There is no program or mode that can shift my Tip to my liking better than I can do it myself !!

Delete

Well, good question. I bought the TIP to deal with SOCAL traffic. Not sorry I did. When the urge to shift and road conditions allow then I hit the buttons. I had a car with the paddles (not a Porsche) and loved shifting it. I would likely use manual mode more often with the paddles.

A little late, but +1 for always using manual mode. Standard mapping makes the old M96 shift up way too early. These boxes were mapped for fuel economy, not preserving the life of the motor. The only way to keep the revs up into an acceptable range is to go manual. My oddity is that mine shifts from 1st to second at 6400 rpm, even in manual mode. Must be a safety feature. [1999 C2 - this year did not allow the use of the buttons in auto mode]

Thanks to all who have documented the MBZ AMG paddle shifter install on a Tiptronic steering wheel. I would not have attempted the project without the details posted by others. No drama-it was straight forward. Hardest thing was placing masking tape template on each side so the paddles would be symmetrical. I used a hobby knife and needle nose plies to remove the foam and then did the fine fit with a Dremel sanding drum. Very happy with results. Much more fun to shift now. Faster too - no more hunting for the buttons. My only concern is the single screw mount for each paddle. I used an M4 tap for unthreaded plastic sleeve and used an m4 metric screw. Hope it never strips out.

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did you leave the buttons operational?

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My paddles arrived this week, hope to get this done right after the holidays, can't wait,!

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Yes, I did leave the buttons operational. Thinking if a paddle should became faulty the buttons could be used. That would save the drama of having to remove everything and re-wire the buttons again.

Still considering this project, or finding someone local who would do it for me... Also, I drive my Tip in Manual pretty much every day also. I think it's way more than the 0.01% as someone alluded to earlier, as I don't have many friends I'm "showing off" to in my car... It just is more fun, and with our engine, low revs make it sluggish, slow and quite joyless. However, would YOU buy a 996 (obviously used) with this mod done?? I would think it would be a harder sell on an already difficult car to move with this type of alteration?

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Good point. I gave the eventual re-sale some consideration. I discovered that finding a used Tip 996 steering wheel is considerably cheaper than a non-tip wheel. If selling, one can always throw in a stock wheel before selling and offer the paddle wheel as an option..

I would think the paddles wouldn't hurt resale. Really, nothing was done to the car to affect its operation. The wiring isn't altered, just rerouted to a different switch. If anything I'd say the paddles are a bonus. I mean, there is a demand for wheels that have the paddles already on these forums, no? Assuming the installation is clean.

Someone would have to be a real stickler for originality not to want the paddles on a 996, I think it would be a bonus when selling..

^I agree, If I had a TIP this would be my very first mod!

Good points on both sides, really. It is an easily reversible mod should someone want to change it out. For me it would matter how well the mod was done, so if it's clean and tidy and works, probably no issue. If I were buying from this Forum, it'd be a non-issue. If I were buying from say Cargurus or Autotrader, then it may be a different story of course, especially if it wasn't a local car. I earlier this year looked at a 997.1 Tip with paddles (I actually had a thread about it in the 997 Forum) and they were aftermarket, but poorly done, so that has just stuck with me as a potential stickler. There's an amazing 997.1 C2S Aero F/S in the Classifieds with Tip that would probably be a good candidate for this... I just want PDK so bad lol.

Quick question. I'm installing paddle shifters right now and i wonder how flush you are able to get the shifters to the back of the wheel. I have this much showing, even with a spacer nut behind the washer, so i think i need to dig deeper but don't want to cut away too much of the steering wheel. In a thin section I'm about to cut thru.

Looks like you need to go deeper...

Just finished doing my own installation of the paddles and had a slightly different experience than reported and struggled with getting the outer ring to sit flush with the surface of the steering wheel on all sides. I guess I cut too deep with the Dremel as I did expose some of the metal "skeleton" of the steering wheel, so when I installed the paddles, the back of the switch bottomed out on the metal, resulting in a nice metal to metal thunk each time I actuated the paddle. Kind of I nice sound I thought (think haptic feedback), however that thunk was the result of the articulated back of the switch making physical contact with the metal inside the wheel, preventing 100% full travel of the switch. I decided I'd better check the function of the switch using the multimeter and found the switch would work intermittently on one side and not at all on the other! Worse, because the switch was not fully seated on the outer ring, there was some rocking meaning the intermittent side would work if hit squarely in the middle of the paddle but not when shifting from the upper end. At first I thought I needed to increase the distance from the switch outer flange to the surface of the wheel, but then I realized you can file the metal prongs that extend past the back of the switch when depressed and increase the clearance that way. Using soft jaws in the vice to prevent marking up the finish and compressing the switch, I removed about 1mm of the metal prong using the Dremel. After careful deburring and lots of compressed air to blow out any filings, I installed the switch and was able to get a nice flush fit on the upper side of the switch (the one you see) and proper functioning of the switch on both sides. I still have a 3mm gap between the outer flange and the wheel surface on the lower side but since you can't see it when the wheel is installed, I can live with it. I'd strongly suggest checking the switch function before re-installing the steering wheel just in case you have similar issues. I can imagine the frustration of completing the mod only to have it work only some of the time or not at all!

I cut out a spacer from black hard foam I got from a craft store to make the paddle sit nicely.

[QUOTE=Bizmonq;16437631 I'd strongly suggest checking the switch function before re-installing the steering wheel just in case you have similar issues. I can imagine the frustration of completing the mod only to have it work only some of the time or not at all![/QUOTE] Good suggestion. I just tested both of mine and they work fine. One of the paddles doesn't have quite the "click" feel of the other paddle but continuity tests fine. Tested each about a dozen times. I did run into one other bit of confusion, tho. The instructions above say to connect the "yellow wire from the downshift paddle to the existing yellow/brown wire" and to connect the "blue wire from the "upshift paddle to the brown/red wire". However, my "downshift paddle" has a blue wire and the "upshift" paddle has a yellow wire. So are the original instruction backwards, or are the paddles now coming with reversed wire colors? I'm tempted to connect the blue wire from my downshift paddle to the yellow/brown wire and the yellow wire from my upshift paddle to the brown/red wire. Thoughts?

Question for someone that has done this recently. The instructions above say to connect the "yellow wire from the downshift paddle to the existing yellow/brown wire" and to connect the "blue wire from the "upshift paddle to the brown/red wire". However, my "downshift paddle" has a blue wire and the "upshift" paddle has a yellow wire. So are the original instruction backwards, or are the paddles now coming with reversed wire colors? What did you do?

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The foam spacer ring sounds like an elegant solution, can you post a pic?

It appears the photo is correct but the instructions are written in reverse. Easy to understand how that could happen since in the photo both upshift and downshift wires are entering the steering wheel cavity from the RH side so you can't positively tell which wire is from the upshift paddle (yellow), and which wire is from the downshift paddle (bllue) just by looking at the photo. The clue that the yellow wire actually comes from the upshift paddle is in the first photo of post #7 that shows the wires without the horn plate installed and the yellow wire coming from the RH upshift side. As well, the first pic of post #1 shows the stock AMG paddles with the upshift paddle with a yellow wire. All that said, the instructions should read: "Splice the yellow wire from the RH upshift + paddle to the existing yellow/brown wire, and splice the blue wire from the LH downshift - paddle to the brown/red wire."

Comparing the very first photo with my paddles, the blue and yellow wires are reversed, my upshift paddle has a blue wire. So I reversed the wiring instructions. Hopefully it work properly when I get my car back on the road.

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Here you go.

Does anyone know if the paddles from a Mercedes W204 C Class would be suitable to do this job? I found a really cheap steering wheel but can�t find any part numbers to check against those in this thread. Thanks for any information/advice

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Nope, the paddles were reversed when i test drove it. So the Blue wire from the upshift paddle connects to the Brown/Red wire and the Yellow wire from the downshift paddle connects to the Yellow/Brown wire.

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Can you cross reference the referrenced paddle shifter with this model car? If the referenced shifters will work with this model then you should be ok. But i have no idea if the Porsche wiring from the car into the steering wheel will match up with this wheel. The recommended paddles aren't that expensive, although a bit of work to install to the Porsche wheel, and the process is well documented.

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Seems like I researched them years ago when I was doing mine, and they are the same as the AMG ones, except plastic !! (get the AMG ones)

Has anyone done this paddle modification with a manual(no Tip buttons) steering wheel? If so, please post photos. I'm considering this on a 996 TTT. Thanks!

Yes, I recall several people wanted to preserve the original tip steering wheel and purchased a non-tip wheel for the paddles install.

The foam is a great solution to fill the gap. I used black GE silicone which also worked well and was very fast and easy to do.

Late to the game, but is it even possible to fit paddles to the early 4-spoke wheel?

My �new� car is in Florida and I�m so enthusiastic to do this project I�ve already bought paddles and am considering buying a spare wheel.. but now I�m realizing I hav no idea what wheel my car has... will this install work on a 4-spoke wheel? Hoping I have the 3 but seems very good to get the answer in the thread.

My DIY build for my Boxster tiptronic, need to do the wiring and fit, going to swap out the 3d printed with CNC once up and running, your thoughts? switch and paddle switches fitted to arm and showing MOMO spacer, wiring complete back of system from the side testing switches and wiring

Ecs has a set in carbon fiber for the Audi S4 I have a set on my 09 cabriolet beautiful

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Nice What a great thread here - tons of info! vetfever

I've had mine installed for several years now, and i have to say it makes the Tip a whole lot more fun to drive in manual mode.

Nice work ! We also have gt3 steering wheels for porsche 996, that come plug and play for tiptronic buttons upgrade to new paddle shifters steering wheel, we included a built in adapter for the core, convertor for tiptronic to paddle shifters, and plug adapter for the airbag, all original 991.2 parts, also available for sale if someone interested to do such conversion [email removed]

I have this mod (MB Paddle shifters) in the queue. Certainly, back burner for now but definitely something worth doing in the future. I keep lurking & circling back here every once in a while.

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hey how�s it going? Couple questions on this. 1) still available? And 2) do u have other styles available? I�m pondering on doing this mod to my Tip but not sure if this 991 wheel would feel right on a 996 lol.

Hi everyone! I have a MY2000 996 C2 and I want to install the paddle shifters as well. I have already sourced a new non tip steering wheel but I am still to buy the paddles, and I am looking for some help here My question: is Mercedes Benz PN [phone removed] the only viable option (cables; etc. wise..) or other part numbers from Mercedes (or other brands..) would be ok too? Has anyone tried successfully with another paddle shifter model? Thanks a lot!

Other options would be great though I haven't seen any yet. A larger paddle and/or one that that has up and down shift functions on the same paddle would be nice.

Nothing wrong with the AMG Paddles IMHO....They are nice and heavy Aluminum with a very distinct soft "Click" when you shift them ... You will have a realy hard time finding a better quality that also fits nice and looks OEM...

Will these paddle mods work with a 997.1 Tiptronic?

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The 997.1 has the big splines on the steering shaft, so the 991 Paddle Shifter Steering Wheel will bolt right on with no Spline Adapter needed, Plug-n-Play...( maybe a slight wiring mod needed for 2-stage air bag,,...can't remember , been 2 decades)

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Hi, how did it go? I have a 4 spoke wheel also. Did you do the modification ?