Shifter boot

The shifter boot on the Jetta was a little tatty so I ordered a replacement from Redline goods. It arrived just before the car was to go into the shop and knowing Keith was going to be working on the shifter bushings I decided to hold off on installation. The Redline product is very nice, real leather with a different color stitching at no extra cost.
Shifter installation is very easy, unscrew the shifter knob, pull the bottom of the boot off the base and slip it out, then reverse. I accidentally ordered graphite at the time not remembering the interior on my car is black but I like the contrast between the two especially with the white stitching.

I'd also ordered the parking brake boot. I probably didn't need that but wanted them to look the same. This is where things got weird, the parking brake boot is considerably harder to get out of place, theres a trim piece around the nose of the handle (where you push to release the brake) that has to be pried out, then the console has to come up, a trim ring gets removed and the boot is actually stapled to that trim ring...

I finally got it all apart and was disappointed to find that the was no way the replacement was going to fit. It'll slide about 60% of the way on to the parking brake handle but no more plus the bottom of the boot wouldn't fit the trim ring and has its tabs in the wrong places so even if it did fit the trim ring wouldn't be able to clip on. My guess is that this boot is for a mk4 Jetta while mine is a mk3.

I emailed Redline and got a response (Saturday morning no less) asking me if I would be willing to send my old boot so they could make an exact custom fit. I'm going to do that next week. We'll see how that works out.

Overall for now I'm going to rate my experience with Redline as positive, they were quick to respond and the offer seems like a good one. We'll see how getting the custom boot works out.