Hi all. Recently purchased my first car, a 2006 panda active. As is is a car that has done 30000 miles there is a bit of wear and tear - most notable of which is on the gear gaiter which is starting to split at the top. I have seen a replacement on ebay but is this a hard job to do? I can see no obvious way of removing the old one to replace it and could live with the old one but if its an easy job might as well replace as I have the rest of the car looking pretty new. Thanks in advance

I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure the lower part of the shift boot just pops off with a little tut. From there you have to pull off the shifter and you should be able to peel off the shift boot.

If I could add a small question of my own, is it possible to buy the rubber shift boot seen on the Panda concept photos? I think it's much nicer than the standard fake leather shift boot.

It's the one shown in this picture:

We've fabric one's here, not rubber. Never knew they done one rubber ones.

Oh i like that! I take it the knob has to come of then? Dont fancy that as it looks a tricky job. Anyone any idea how much a dealer would charge for this?

Having bought a replacement leather gaiter on eBay and then read several accounts of people having to destroy the gear knob to remove the gear knob to fit the gaiter I was wondering what to do. The gear knob on our 2007 1.2 4x4 was clearly not going to come off without wrecking something but the old gaiter looked tatty!


So what I have done is to remove the old gaiter by:-
1. - Prising up the ring that holds the bottom of the gaiter into the dashboard
2. -Pulling the gaiter inside out to expose the fixing onto the gear stick
3. -Cutting off the nylon ratchet strip that holds the top of the gaiter onto the stick
4. - Slitting with a sharp knife the top of the gaiter so that it will lift over the gear knob

So then the new one is the reverse of this
1. Fit the new gaiter onto the bottom retaining ring
2. Turn the gaiter inside out
3. Make as short a slit as necessary in the thin end of the gaiter behind the stick from the drivers viewpoint so that it will just fit over the gear knob and down to where it needs to be held onto the stick
4. With a sharp needle and some black thread sew up the slit cut earlier as neatly as possible from the inside of the gaiter

5. Refasten the gaiter to the stick including the elasticated band on one side of the stick using a new nylon ratchet clamp
6. Turn the gaiter back to the right way out
[FONT=&quot]Push fit the lower retaining ring into the dashboard.

Hey presto!
[/FONT]

Thanks John. Having noticed a small slit in my gaitor this week it looks like I'll have to replace it soon.

Makes you wonder how hard it would be for fiat to make gear knobs that screw off and on.