gaurang

i drove a TT with the paddle shifters and it was a lot of fun. However, I think long term ownership and daily driving needs a multifunction wheel.

Ergonomics are very good however.. so what do y'all suggest?

gaurang

i meant OR in the subject

slwong23

Multi-function IMO... Use mine all the time for stereo and phone control. Unless you really think you'll use the paddle shifters often, I'd go w the multi function steering wheel.

f4 plt

I've driven a 2011 with the multi-function wheel and I must say it is well designed and very user friendly. That said since I have the true paddle shift wheel on my PDK Porsche as well as my wife's 3 series BMW I will go with the paddle shift wheel as I do manually shift some of the time and all cars will be the same. Got to keep it simple for the old guy.

rome

I owuld have likes to get the sport wheel, but it just seemed so much less practical than the multi-function for a daily driver...plus, it's not heated.

w00tPORSCHE

Lot of folks who live in a cold weather state absolutely love their heated steering wheels. It's one of those features which you won't miss unless you've had it. That feature alone is the reason that has me going for that MF steering wheel. I must say that there are times when i've missed a MF feature on my 997.2. Paddle shift levers do give it a nice sporty look to the whole set up though. You do have those paddle buttons on the MF wheel but many prefer the looks/functionality of the "real" paddle shifters.

Andy E.

If there IS a God, he'll communicate with one of the Porsche engineers while he's sleeping and make him design an 'upgrade kit' for our pre '11 tiptronic models.

I'm done with accidentally up/down-shifting my GTS with those badly-positioned +/- steering wheel-mounted rocker switches!

copasetic222

Go with the MF wheel and the Tech Art paddle shifters.

s4for5

No Paddle shifter mods from Techart for < 2011 model years from what I can see

http://www.techart.de/fileadmin/cont...eder090909.pdf

CrazyMD

I've been reading these forums for quite some time in anticipation of the time that I would purchase a new 911 Turbo. I found the car I was looking for and the vehicle turned out to be very sentimental to me. If you read the following article you will understand why:

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2...-life/1811295/

After taking delivery of the car, I found the PDK paddleshift system to be reverse of whats normal for me and difficult to drive. So I started looking on the internet for options.

I came upon the Techart PDK paddle's. After calling Techart and talking with someone named Florian, he sold me on the $900 upgrade kit.

I received my kit and on sunday began the installation. Midway during the install (After my steering wheel is off the car and taken apart) I noticed that the plastic paddles have internal cracks in them. I should have stopped at this point seeing the poor quality of the kit. I put a little superglue on the inside of the paddle's and continued with the install.

For $900, the kit consists of 4 pieces of plastic...maybe valued at $5, manufactured and molded in china. 2 pieces are the paddles and 2 plastic pieces cover the front of the steering wheel where the PDK push button used to be. After everything was complete, I had the steering wheel back on the car, I completed the last step which was snapping the 2 PDK button covers in place. Not to my surprise, the fit and quality of the buttons was very poor. They do not fit into place correctly, it seems that the molding is a bit off. Infact when I pull the left paddle, the plastic cover moves quite a bit. Definitely not right.

So I immediately email Techart indicating that the installation went well, however one of the plastic covers molding doesnt seem to fit right and I'd like to swap that out for another one that would possibly fit better. The response I get from this moron is to disassemble the entire kit, return it to them and they will give me another kit. I tell him that it took 3 hours to install the kit. Why would I take everything off when all you need to do is exchange out a $1 plastic cover piece for me which is the last step in the instructions. Again I received the same idiotic response including that I should have had them professionally installed. I responded that had I paid a shop to do the install and you tell me to take everything apart to swap out a small piece they would be responsible for all my costs incurred. I could tell that dealing with this company is not worth anymore of my time.

So the bottom line, if you are looking at upgrading your PDK paddles I would recommend AVOIDING using Techart. Their quality control is horrible, their parts do not fit right, and their customer service is worse than the crappy chinese manufacturing used to make their parts.

I called American express today, opened a dispute on the charge. I'll be posting some pictures and a youtube video of the poor quality of their product. I'll be taking the entire kit off my car and putting it back to stock or just buying the Factory Porsche S steering wheel that has the paddles built in.

Andy E.

Amir, thanks for sharing the link and also for being a wonderful human being by saving a child's life. There should be more people like you in this world.

Regarding the paddle shift kit, I'm truly surprised that a German engineering company like TechArt would allow for poor QC like this to happen. In general, when a non-OEM part is used, poor-fitment can many times be an issue. Auto companies spend millions of dollars beta & field-testing their components, assemblies and sub-assemblies prior to production. Any given part can fail prematurely under different circumstances; whether it be caused by temperature, pressure, or operator input. The consumer's impression of overall feel and fit of all components is also a major factor when designing oem parts.

The TechArt paddle kit cost seems quite high yet, you do have to understand the money that goes into developing a new product. There's the R & D costs, prototyping, injection mold fabrication and testing as well as actual molding of the components. There are also liability issues related to any automobile component which equates to further testing and, in some cases, agency approvals. If the market for PDK paddles is small and the number of kits sold is lower than expected, the cost of the components to the consumer will definitely be higher.

Regarding TechArt's stand on the matter, I can understand their not wanting to send you an entire kit (for obvious reasons). However, for one defective part? Very strange and very unprofessional. If you have a chance, please post some pictures of the parts in question.

kosmo

why isnt a MF wheel available w/ Paddles?

rbaron

I'm just starting to look into finding a newer CS (mine is '04) and I'd prefer to find one with paddles instead of the 'switches'. In what model year did paddles become available? I gather they have been and still are available only with the optional 3 spoke steering wheel and not as standard equipment as they are on some other brands (BMW, Audi), correct?

Thanks,

--Bob

mudman2

Never on an 04 sorry MY 2011 earliest

rbaron

And in 2011 and thereafter only as a special-order option?