A couple months ago I noticed my stock shift boot was starting to develop some holes. I've had the car for almost 3 years (with 70,000 miles on the clock) so I figured it had served its purpose pretty well over that time. I started looking into alternatives.

First I looked at the Redline stuff, but I could never really judge the colors of the boots very well and I didn't want to pay for the samples so they got written off. I could also have gotten a replacement stock boot but I was looking for something a little different. Then I looked at the Craven Speed cover. It looked nice, however all the images they show always had their logo engraved onto the face. That wasn't something I wanted, however a quick email to the guys at Craven Speed and I found out they don't put their logo on the covers anymore.

Now that I had decided on what replacement I had to decide which style. Chrome was right out, I'm not a big fan of chrome. So what I had left was black or silver. I was leaning a bit toward black but then I took a good look at my interior. I had chosen the silver dash and space gray cloth seats. The interior console was also more of a gray color than black. So black was removed and silver remained. I placed my order directly from Craven.

The cover showed up a little over a week later waiting at home for me after work. So I got out the tools and prepared to install. The old shift boot came off easily enough, just pull up on the ring and it pops out. I cut off the zip-tie that holds the boot onto the shaft of the shifter and removed the old, torn up boot. The Craven well cover just screws directly into the console using the included screws and in one case an insert for the one larger screw hole. It also comes with a plastic plate that is held onto the shifter shaft via a rubber grommet. That plate is what fills the space between the hold in the metal and the area around the shifter. However, when installing the plate I managed to chew up the grommet. It happened because the hole in the plastic plate that the shaft fits through was a little small for the B&M shifter.

I sent a quick message to Kellen at Craven Speed telling him that I messed up the grommet during my installation and if I could get a replacement. He replied quickly and sent me a replacement. However, due to a bit of a mix-up with postage and such it came back to him, he sent me a message relating this info and sent it out again. Well, earlier this week I got the replacement grommet and fixed my install this morning.

What I ended up doing was tracing the outer diameter of the grommet on the plastic plate and then taking a dremel-like-thing and widening the hole. Now everything is installed properly and looking great.

I want to thank Kellen for going the extra mile and replacing something I screwed up at no extra charge to me.

 

Looks very nice. Seems like a simple install. I plan on going the CravenSpeed way with their Short-Shifter, Shift Well Plate, and ****. Glad to hear you're experience with Kellen went well.