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Purchased a torque solution short shifter for my 2015 Roadster S R59 6-speed of course, from ECS Tuning. Do not order this part it will not fit the R59 in a year. Started work on it Friday everything on the East Coast closed so I had to wait till Monday to contact ECS solutions. There MINI Specialist Mini Mike was not in today so they had me send an email so when he comes back in tomorrow, he might be able to reply to my email. Not good customer service because they’re selling someone else’s part. ECS application states it does fit the R59. Called Torque Solution and they say they do not have a shifter for an R59 and that shifter does not fit on R59 because on torque solutions website it states it only goes to an R56.
What started all of this is I could not get the stock shifter out from the plastic cup once I removed everything according to the instructions, so I called for technical assistance.
So do your homework like I have and will be doing from now on. If there is a manufacture part number for one of their items they have on their website, check with the manufacturer to see if it actually fits and then purchase it from that manufacturer. Save yourself a lot of headaches and car downtime.
Yep, let me know. I was out of the office and you can always PM here. I want to see what did not work.
Most of the time our fitment guide goes beyond the vendor as they dont know every MINI model OEM part number cross over. The R56 and R59 share a bunch of items. Thus it will work, TS needs to update their site and did not. Also when you call into most manufactures they might just have NON MINI people working and look at the their own site "well it does not fit".
They are not consistently updating their site like we do nor going beyond for customers fitment. Just letting you know what we see in the market.
Also if we find something and want to expand fitment to the next person, we work with people on the forums (like you) to expand fitment.
It’s hard for me to be an upset customer because I’ve been working a customer service pretty much for 45+ years, now retired. Yes, the part listed above on ECS Tuning says that it fits. Then torque solutions says it does not. Sorry you were out of the office, but I called Friday afternoon when everybody had already left your time, but I was still working on this pacific time.
The instructions start out the same as the R59, but after the shifter assy is removed, it’s not the same to remove the shift rod.
The white bushing broke on removal. Ordered a new shift assembly from MINI. Sad that bushing is not available anywhere, and no aftermarket replacement bushing I could find.
We’re gonna go with no short shifter and reinstall everything back to stock. Sad, look forward to the shorter shifts.
Stock on right:
Threaded shaft on Torque Solution:
Last edited by CoreyDSFA; Apr 6, 2026 at 02:43 PM.
Reason: Added pictures
Originally I could not get the white bushing out, and the pictures in the instructions didn't look like what I attached in the pictures. That, and the threaded shif **** area wasn't the same. Once I found out from TS that they said it doesn't fit, I stopped and didn't try to see why it wouldn't. TS makes these, knows it doesn't fit, and told me it doesn't, so why go any further? If TS said, "It might fit, we haven't verified it does or doesn't on the R59", I'd still have to wait for the new complete shift assy to arrive to get the installed white bushing removed a better way, and then give it try to see why it would or wouldn't work. I would take more pictures, and share the information with them. TS then could update their website info. I did not look up the parts diagrams to see the difference in the R59 and the R56, but that would be for someone that is now interested in seeing why this wont work. This is not my first rodeo with helping a manufacture update their website.
Return and refund started, and box was just given to my FedEx Driver a few minutes ago.
Sorry to hear you had difficulty with the installation, but sounds like it had less to do with the product in question than the removal of the stock piece. Telling others to avoid a product because you had issue with the OEM piece is a little backwards, I feel. Seems a little backwards…
@njaremka
You totally missed my point of this topic.
This complainant is not about the product. It was about application listing on a site that sells a lot of items for our MINI. Frustrating that ECS lists that it fits, but later to find out once deep into the install, including buying and installing the deeper NM Lower Cable Cover (it fits).
The shifter is not for any year R59, then to verify from Torque Solution that it is not designed to fit. Had I known this I wouldn’t have bought it in the first place. This posting is about information, and looking deeper into aftermarket products. We shouldn’t have double check and contact the manufacture about the application, but apparently we do. Double check.
This is information to share with all R59 Owners, that if you wanted this same short shifter you see it is listed on ECS Tuning, don’t buy it because it won’t work.
As of this reply, it is still showing on ECS that it fits the R59.
Last edited by CoreyDSFA; Apr 7, 2026 at 07:28 AM.
Oh, I understood your post. And, I'm telling you, there is nothing physically different from the R59 shifter compared to the R56 shifter. Some vendor manufacturers "Think" there is a difference, so only list compatibility with the model they tested. Others understand the cross model compatibility and realize they don't have to test every single model to confirm it will work. ECS understands the differences, and will list for products that they know will fit across the different models. For you to not even try, and then bash ECS.... Well, OK.
You could of bought the retaining ring bushing from Cravenspeed to replace the white OEM part that broke and the shifter would have worked. I agree with @njareka. Ebay says that parts fir while other sellers say the part wont but if the parts physically are the same - what difference does it make if the parts do infact work?
You should of waited to hear from the forum before making slants against businesses or making moves, especially if you wrre alresdy set in what you were planning to do. You found out that it would work, so why not use it?
