DSG Paddleshifter Extensions....

[RedRobin]

I have great safety concerns about extension paddles for the wheel-equipped paddle shifters. In the (heaven forbid) event of accident, the wheel could spin around and one of those things could cause significant injury to your hands or arms. You will notice that "long" paddle shifters are used on vehicles where the paddles are fixed to the steering column box - this is what Ferrari, Bentley, Lamborghini, et al do. On the Scirocco race car the situation is the same, the paddles are not affixed to the wheel and will not spin around.
On vehicles with the paddles attached to the wheels - VW/Audi/Seat range, Bugatti Veyron, Porsche PDK-equipped cars, the paddles are very small and heavily integrated into the wheel to help avoid injury.

If you track your car at all I would strongly advise against using these, and would advise against using them on the road as well.
Just my tuppenny-worth.

....A very interesting tuppenny-worth!

I'm having difficulty imagining just how such paddles might be damaging but I'm not able to totally disagree with you.

Just thinking aloud about this important safety point: As these paddle extensions are attached by adhesive pads, might they in fact come off relatively easily when subjected to the force of an accident? I'm thinking that although they wouldn't break within their own structure before a human finger would break, their adhesive fixing would break first.

Their fixing is such that they are very strong when pulling towards you (which is the action of their everyday operation) but weak when pushed away from you (which is an action you neither take nor do you travel with your fingers between the wheel and the paddle extensions).

At the moment I'm not convinced you are right but I keep an open mind and I may be wrong. Could you elaborate, please?

[tony_danza]

Raising the gear lever looks very cool there ^^. I wonder if they could do the same to mine!

Hmm - interesting thought. Is it a series of switches (which would make it easy) or a physical linkage?

Oh, and RR. Good write up, don't know if they're my cup of tea but I'd be interested in a feel of them - I've only got little hands and the paddles when at the quarter to three postion and thumbs up are only really at my fingertips.

[WhiteGTI]

Raising the gear lever looks very cool there ^^. I wonder if they could do the same to mine!

Hmm - interesting thought. Is it a series of switches (which would make it easy) or a physical linkage?

It is an interesting concept yeah! On my Elise, it has a very high gear lever shaft so that the shift knob is very close to the steering wheel. Really effective in minimising hand movement away from the wheel, and im sure it reduces shift times by a few biliseconds!

I've always felt that the golf gear knob is too low (as are most road cars in comparison to fully prepped race cars obviously), so any chance to raise the gear lever would be welcomed IMO!

Sorry to digress away from this thread topic, i shall shut up now 

[Greeners]

Another superb write up Robin that Im sure I've read before but enjoyed just as much the second time around 

Nearly makes me want a DSG 

[RedRobin]

Another superb write up Robin that Im sure I've read before but enjoyed just as much the second time around 

....Yes, I'd originally written it on BIALI Motorsport but thought it might be useful here. I didn't bother to rewrite it in the WHY/SOURCE/INSTALLATION etc format.

[RedRobin]

Oh, and RR. Good write up, don't know if they're my cup of tea but I'd be interested in a feel of them - I've only got little hands and the paddles when at the quarter to three postion and thumbs up are only really at my fingertips.

....Then make please sure you ask me when we meet sometime in the future and I'll let you have a feel.

[Don't let Nathan know though ]

[Greeners]

Oh, and RR. Good write up, don't know if they're my cup of tea but I'd be interested in a feel of them - I've only got little hands and the paddles when at the quarter to three postion and thumbs up are only really at my fingertips.

....Then make please sure you ask me when we meet sometime in the future and I'll let you have a feel.

[Don't let Nathan know though ]

Been there done that, he's all yours 

[cmdrfire]

....A very interesting tuppenny-worth!

I'm having difficulty imagining just how such paddles might be damaging but I'm not able to totally disagree with you.

Just thinking aloud about this important safety point: As these paddle extensions are attached by adhesive pads, might they in fact come off relatively easily when subjected to the force of an accident? I'm thinking that although they wouldn't break within their own structure before a human finger would break, their adhesive fixing would break first.

Their fixing is such that they are very strong when pulling towards you (which is the action of their everyday operation) but weak when pushed away from you (which is an action you neither take nor do you travel with your fingers between the wheel and the paddle extensions).

At the moment I'm not convinced you are right but I keep an open mind and I may be wrong. Could you elaborate, please?

If in an accident the driving wheels are made to turn - easily possible in a number of situations - the steering wheel will spin and these extensions could very easily act as a blade (even though they aren't sharp). Remember, in a serious accident, arms/hands/fingers can go into a number of places, not always in a controlled manner.
Whether or not the paddleswould break off on contact with a hand depends on the shear strength of the adhesive, but if the adhesive is strong enough the carbon blades will go through bone (it's unlikely to suffer structural failure). The tensile strength of the adhesive (as you describe) is unlikely to be important.
A number of components in the Golf (indeed, in all modern cars) are designed to fail in a controlled manner, in the case of knobs/buttons through a shearing motion. It's my guess that these paddles are not and the main decision behind choosing the adhesive is "is it strong enough to hold the paddles on securely".

[RedRobin]

^^^^
I understand your points and your concerns.

Perhaps the only way to establish whether the paddles' adhesive fixing would fail (as preferred) or not, would be with controlled tests.

The laminated carbon paddles themselves are extremely strong and are unlikely to break easily in the circumstances we are discussing, but lateral forces or forces in some other directions are likely to cause the paddles to fall away. All this is theoretical but based on my experience of fitting them and using them - However, I may be entirely wrong.

I'm afraid it's a risk I'm currently prepared to take as being no more of a risk when driving a Golf GTI Mk5.

The hope is that whereas it's been designed and produced to hold the paddles on securely, it's not welded on.

[Phil Mcavity]

I have great safety concerns about extension paddles for the wheel-equipped paddle shifters. In the (heaven forbid) event of accident, the wheel could spin around and one of those things could cause significant injury to your hands or arms. You will notice that "long" paddle shifters are used on vehicles where the paddles are fixed to the steering column box - this is what Ferrari, Bentley, Lamborghini, et al do. On the Scirocco race car the situation is the same, the paddles are not affixed to the wheel and will not spin around.
On vehicles with the paddles attached to the wheels - VW/Audi/Seat range, Bugatti Veyron, Porsche PDK-equipped cars, the paddles are very small and heavily integrated into the wheel to help avoid injury.

If you track your car at all I would strongly advise against using these, and would advise against using them on the road as well.
Just my tuppenny-worth.

The last thing id be worried about in the event of a prang is my finger nails!!. in a major smash, your hands wont be still on the wheel and the airbags would be my 1st concern and the crumple zones do there job. Either one of those fails it would be good night nursey.

[cmdrfire]

The last thing id be worried about in the event of a prang is my finger nails!!. in a major smash, your hands wont be still on the wheel and the airbags would be my 1st concern and the crumple zones do there job. Either one of those fails it would be good night nursey.

I know I'm being something of a killjoy here, put it to my engineering background (I deal with high voltages and vehicle testing every day, so safety is priority 1).... say the crumple zones collapse as intended, the airbags deploy, the seatbelt restraint fires (seatbelts are the NUMBER ONE safety device in a car. Airbags and crumple zones help, but their impact on survival is much less than a seatbelt is), so you will survive. But, whilst you're being thrown around, your hand gets caught inside the ring of the wheel. Is that a place where you really want what is effectively a spinning blade? Then instead of a broken hand/wrist to worry about, you've got the possibility of lacerations in your hand or amputation of your fingers to worry about as well.
Anyway, it's just me bing a worrywort I suspect :)

[RedRobin]

^^^^
I think that what you describe may indeed happen but isn't every accident different? I'm not convinced the spinning finger chopper is a definite foregone conclusion.

Rightly or wrongly I'm inclined to think positive and take my chances. Afterall, one's life is at risk every time you drive!

[Hurdy]

If the air bags go off (which they invariably will in such a violent smash that would shear off the extensions). Then your hands would be blown away from the area anyway!

To force off the extensions there would have to be an impact sooo significant that any part of your hands in the area that is affected would be injured regardless of two bits of carbon fibre.

As Phil has said. I'd have more important things to think about if the collision was violent enough to displace the extensions.

What are the odds going to be anyway? I'll take my life into my hands and risk it for the .000000000000000001% possibility that they turn into mini shurikens!

[cmdrfire]

Last note on this - I appreciate the odds of catastrophic failure occuring with those extensions are small, I was just raising the point. @Hurdy, I'm not suggesting that the things would fly off shuriken-style and decapitate you, merely that a limb may get trapped within a spinning wheel where they could do some damage. I'd ensure that the shear strength of the adhesive used was low enough such that a sideways force (ie from your hand) would cause them to come off the paddle, rendering them somewhat safer.

[Hurdy]

I can see your point of view about a spinning steering wheel in the event of an impact, but I suppose it is like everything else in life, If you think about it too much, you would never do anything or say anything for fear of the impact it may have.