The Tuning Shop shift boot review
 

I bought a shift boot from Amazon. The vendor is The Tuning Shop, a UK company (hence its also called gear shift gator). This is for an ap2 (I have an '06).

Also bought an armrest cover, a new product (they only used to have an ap1 armrest, even though tbey had shift boots for both ap1 and ap2). See my other review for that product.

The mounting holes all aligned very well with the plastic surround. I had read that with a different, well known vendor, there were issues with the locations of the mounting holes for their ap2 boots. So I was pleased that wasn't an issue here.

There is a generous amount of leather beyond the size of the stock boot I replaced. So I just tucked the extra leather in behind the mounting tabs. See photos.

Attachment 138889
Attachment 138888

The leather is soft and supple. I was impressed with the quality, especially for the price.

The red stitching adds that sporting touch I was looking for.

There is also a generous amount of leather at the top. It also is sewn to be tight against the wide area of the shift rod, so it stays where you put it.

I consider myself an effective critic. I am very detail oriented. I consider what others might see things. If there are any potential cons, I notice them. But there really isn't anything worth whining about here. I'm quite pleased!

They make these in various colors and stitching options. Solid or perforated leather. You can also get a stitched S2000 logo. They make these in house. So they can do something custom for you as well.

And you can buy it on Amazon! They also sell on their web site, but prices are in British Pounds, etc. Easier to buy off Amazon. You can contact them via Amazon, and they are very responsive. The person I worked with is named Magda.


Attachment 138890

They make shift boots and armrest covers for our cars. Both ap1 and ap2.

That jam nut/collar thing ya got is neat. Where'd ya get that?

They also make them in bare aluminum. The size is same as reverese lockout. So if you have an aftermarket knob with a recess for reverse lockout, this will fit perfectly in the cavity.

As you can see, it also fits the stock knob bottom perfectly.

However if you have an aftermarket knob with a deep recess, meant to lower it to act like a short shifter, it may not be long enough to fit into the recess before ot reaches the wider part of the retainer.

Also, since our cars shift rod gets wider right below the threaded area, I had to relieve the bottom underside of the retainer to go low enough to get knob to fit.

I used a universal step drill bit, followed by a grinding bit to relieve the bottom of retainer.

It looks way cleaner than a loose boot just laying there below the knob. Or worse, when the boot touches bottom of knob, so it looks like a woman with an A shaped dress that goes up to her neck. I really hate that look. And the feel of grabbing boot whenever I try to shift.

I could tie wrap boot to the retainer for an even more refined look. I'll do that at some point.

It's a definitely nice look for sure! I wouldn't mind the loose boot with the inverted portion so much if it just wasn't bare leather....looks kind of cheesy.... Like on my 8th gen Si they atleast have a little collar on the inside of the boot just to clean up the look a little bit. I've been trying to find just an aluminum collar to fill in that little void, but I don't want to stick the boot to the bottom of the knob, imo that just looks wrong. The way yours is set up is nice. Do you know what I'm talking about? It almost raises the shift boot up until it touches the bottom of the knob....in my opinion that looks worse, the way yours does it is much nicer.

Yes, the dress up to her neck look. I also dislike that strongly.

does the shift boot include the slits at the top of the neck for a ziptie like the oem boot?

I'm not sure. I didn't realize stock boot has such slits, so didn't look for them on the new one.

The kit did include an actual zip tie, which I did not try to use yet. I'm planning on a different shift knob, so was going to wait till then (since different knobs have different install heights, didn't want to have to redo the zip tie).

But the fact that it did have a zip included makes me think maybe it does have such slits. When I get home I'll take a closer look at stock boot, which is obviously off the car. Once I see what these slits look like, I'll see if new boot has them.

Thank you for the review, I just placed an order!
How long did it take for you to receive yours?

It was a while ago. Don't really recall. But my experience is not really relevant, as they shipped boot along with the armrest cover they had to make for the first time from pattern I sent them. So there was added wait time built in.

They never had a pattern for ap2 armrest, and agreed to make one for free if I sent my old one to use as pattern and to send feedback on fit. So I placed order for boot, then had them hold order while waiting for my package to arrive there, then for them to make new armrest, then ship both.

I did a separate review for armrest (I like it a lot. Fit was great, looks fantastic. Did give them a few minor fit improvement details, so it should only be better now. Only negative I could find was the red accent stitching isn't perfectly straight on every stitch, but that is only because I also asked for perf leather. If a particular stitch happened to need to land where there was a perf hole, that stitch had to veer sideways to have meat to bite in to. Can't really fault craftsmanship for that). Not really noticeable unless you look for it.