Creating a shift lever worthy of the Grenadier

[BenTN]

While I waited 2 years to receive my Grenadier, I noticed that every single review I saw mentioned how the BMW shift lever just doesn't look like it fits in the cockpit of this off-road vehicle.



To me it looks like a potato. Or maybe a yam.

Notable forum member @Tazzieman found a way to improve it:



In March 2023 @trobex started a thread (link below) about the possibility of replacing the shifter, and many wondered aloud why it wasn't a custom design by Ineos to begin with.
https://www.theineosforum.com/threads/gear-shifter-aftermarket-options.12411627/

Why Ineos used a BMW shifter

I wasn't there and I don't know. But as a product design engineer I can imagine some valid reasons why the decision might have been made, and I am confident that it's not as simple as Ineos being cheap. In fact I dare say this was a shrewd engineering decision.

The shift lever is an input device that controls the drivetrain of the vehicle, and as such is a critical component. It is also fairly complex in that it provides multiple inputs, multiple status displays, and even a mechanical motion lockout (the lateral move to the Manual position is mechanically blocked when not allowed). Buyers expect it to keep working even if they are rough with it, spill coffee in it, get sand in it, bathe it in hand lotion, etc. If the lever stops working properly, predictable operation of the vehicle is compromised. This makes the lever a safety-critical component. Getting this device approved and validated is no small feat.

The Grenadier is a low-volume vehicle, in the world of global vehicles. Ineos will do well to make 25,000 Grenadiers this year. BMW makes about 2.5 Million cars/SUVs per year, and a number of the models share shifters. You read that right; BMW will make 100 vehicles for every one Grenadier built this year. BMW can recover engineering and tooling investment across hundreds of thousands of cars over the life of a shifter design. Ineos can not justify paying for this type of complex product development. Notice that all of the complex subassemblies in the Grenadier (engine, trans, xfer case, axles, seats...) are sourced from some company that makes lots and lots of them for other carmakers. It's the only sound strategy if they want to survive.

So I can forgive Ineos the transgression of putting this BMW shift lever in my car.

But I don't plan to leave it that way.

 

[BenTN]

Part 2: Why the BMW shifter is ergonomically unsatisfying

What I didn't know until I first climbed into my new Grenadier and took a drive was that, in addition to being aesthetically awkward, the BMW shift lever is an ergonomic misfit for the car as well. This shifter was designed for a low-slung sedan or crossover SUV (it is apparently installed in the 2018-2022 530i and G01 X3, and maybe a few other models). The seating position is fundamentally different in these vehicles and that changes the angle that your arm (and thus hand) addresses the shift lever.

(research H-Point https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H-point to better understand the impact this has)

This pic shows the seating position relative to our shifter in a BMW 5-series, with forearm angle shown by red line:

Notice that the shifter sits level with the arm rest top surface and roughly mid-thigh along the drivers leg.

Next time you are in your Grenadier, try slouching down in your seat so that your elbow lays in the cup holder, and grasp the shift lever. You are now holding it the way the BMW designers originally intended. It actually feels pretty good, with a nice bulge resting deep in your palm and your fingers wrapped comfortably around it. Your thumb naturally rests near the 'Unlock' button, and easily rotates up to press the 'Park' button.

But that's not how we sit in this car. The arm angle and hand position is all wrong for this shifter in an upright SUV (very high H-point). When our hand falls on this slender yam of a shifter, we end up delicately squeezing it to avoid the buttons, and moving it fore/aft with our fingers. One's wrist does not naturally bend to firmly grasp the shaft of this lever, so instead we try to operate it without offending it or straining our joints. Feeling sad and defeated, we find something else to focus on. Like that infernal ADAS clicking.

Pic below shows the seating position in a Grenadier (this is not my car), with forearm angle shown by red line:

Notice that the shifter sits entirely below the armrest, and is well forward of the BMW position (closer to the drivers knee). This means that the arm is extended further forward and thus the forearm angle is completely different.

So what is the "ideal" ergonomic solution in a Grenadier?

Try this: close your eyes and relax your arm. Shake it around a bit. Now extend your hand out to where the shifter would be in your car. Open your eyes and look at the orientation of your hand. Your palm is probably laying almost face down, but with the thumb-side rotated upward slightly. This exercise reveals the ideal shape that our shift lever should take. You want to lay your palm on the top of it, your thumb squeezing the unlock button without having to move your hand. You want to shove the shifter forward (into Reverse) with the heel of your palm, and draw it back towards you (into Drive) with your fingers. The ideal ergonomic design is decided for us.

Now we just have to execute this design without compromising the core mission of the shift lever. Meaning we must not accidentally break it or otherwise block its proper function. The best way to accomplish that is to avoid changing the existing shifter at all, instead just add to it.

We are going to make a housing that clamps around the shift lever.

And along the way we will strive to make it look like it belongs in a Grenadier.

 

[BenTN]

Part 3: The Design Work Begins

I picked up my Grenadier the 2nd week of January this year. By the end of January I had decided to design a cover of sorts to transform the shift lever, and I had purchased a used BMW G01 LHD shifter assembly on Ebay. Having a 'test' shifter outside of my car allowed me to complete the project faster since I didn't need constant access to the interior of my daily driver.



The first step was scanning the shifter to capture the complex curves and edges that would be in intimate contact with the new clamshell housing. This was accomplished with both a 'contact' scan arm (6-axis CMM) and a laser scanner. Some of these pics show the test shifter covered in powder to help the laser scanner get a good read on the glossy black surfaces. Measuring all of this gave me precise dimensions as well as accurate surfaces to work with in CAD. We then built up a 3D CAD model that allowed us to generate many housing variations within this environment.



I am fortunate to have these tools available at work, but I am even more fortunate to have some very talented co-workers that enjoy a challenge. A few of them have contributed mightily to the aesthetic and ergonomic design as we progressed through a series of shapes and styles. Our Industrial Designer is a true artist, and she produced dozens of style sketches that influenced the design details, even as the shape morphed dramatically from our original assumptions.



Next, we started 3D-printing for ergonomic checks and installing the best of those in my car for in-vehicle iteration. Driving around with these new housings in place allowed me to live with the shapes day after day, and observe how the user experience was impacted. I think we have now printed 9 numbered test prototypes, and many others that didn't survive long enough to get a number.





A few things that were revealed along the way:
- Flat-ish hand position is a must. Once you have it you will never go back.
- Bulky, chamfered shapes fit the Grenadier aesthetic, and they can still be ergonomic if applied thoughtfully
- If the shifter grows too wide, then it encroaches into the xfer case lever area. For the LHD market, this can cause the trans shifter to be bumped into Manual mode when unlocking the center diff. Shifter total width is a delicate balance.
- I don't need the PRND/M indication on the lever, since it is displayed larger up on the screen anyway (where your hand is not in the way of seeing it)
- I stopped looking at the shifter entirely when we created a channel to guide my thumb from the Unlock button over to the Park button

This last one was significant. I didn't realize how helpful this is until I drove my car again without the housing in place. The yam-shaped shifter offers no tactile feedback to help you find the Park button with confidence.



In the end, I believe that the ergonomic improvements to the shifter are even more valuable than the aesthetic improvements. Ergonomics was not what motivated the effort originally, but by paying attention to the details along the way, we ended up with a better user experience.

 

[BenTN]

Part 4: Progress and Plans

With the detailed CAD data sorted out and the ergonomics working well, we are now playing with the style elements and manufacturing details. This is the phase where sufficient prototype iterations really pay off. Every day we 3D-print new shapes and textures to improve the feel and look of certain details about the shifter. I think it is coming along nicely. The pic below shows some recent sketches and a small prototype that we used to improve the blend between a couple faces where the texture changes. These details may seem trivial but when your hand touches this edge multiple times a day it matters.


We have created a few possible variations worth mentioning:
- with inset red lambda
- with PRND/M indication exposed
- with a location for the Global Grenadiers (forum) badge to reside
- all sorts of color variations

It's not too late to give input on your favorite design elements.



I'm not sure what exactly comes at the end of this project. It is a great training and development exercise for me and the staff at our office, so we will definitely see it through to a "final" version. Of course final is relative, since we could continue to improve or create variations forever. As a good friend likes to say: "At some point you have to shoot the engineer and go into production." But first we might do a "focus group" test and send a batch of these out to forum members and get their feedback.

I don't know if there is market justification for an injection molded version of this design. Tooling (mold) investment for US manufacturing of the cosmetic housings for both LHD and RHD vehicles is expensive. (Hmmm, perhaps I have come to the same conclusion that Ineos did...) Ultimately I might consider running batches of these as a 3D-printed product for a while. If there is sufficient interest maybe Stu will distribute them via the forum store, like we did with the reverse camera glare shrouds.

It's been a fun project so far.

 

[Eyedogtor]

I'm not sure if this is true, but I read that the shifter is actually ther factory designed ZF shifter, and that BMW didn't modify it in it's vehicles, leaving it 'as-is'. Ineos did the same thing, so it's not actually a BMW design.

Pat

 

[NixGrenadier2023]

Does the new Land Rover Defender shifter fit??? While I was waiting for my Grenadier for the past 2 years, I was wondering how I was going to "fix" that BMW shifter... One of my ideas was to buy a Land Rover/Jaguar version off ebay, however they are not cheap.

I do like your concept though. Keep up the good work.

 

[NixGrenadier2023]

ps. The Land Rover shifter has also been fitted to the classic Defender in the Works V8 (2018) model.

 

[anand]

I'm not sure if this is true, but I read that the shifter is actually ther factory designed ZF shifter, and that BMW didn't modify it in it's vehicles, leaving it 'as-is'. Ineos did the same thing, so it's not actually a BMW design.

This was conveyed to us during Ineos training by one of their engineers/specialists.. Either way, @BenTN has come up with quite the interesting add-on to it

 

[DenisM]

"First world problem ... the existing shifter works as it should ...Next please.. "

 

[NixGrenadier2023]

The BMW shifter for me is the most uncomfortable one I have ever owned... I also keep knocking it out of manual (it doesn't have any strong detent).

Here is a custom job from Kilduff for the ZF 8HP70

 

[Jiman01]

Part 3: The Design Work Begins

I picked up my Grenadier the 2nd week of January this year. By the end of January I had decided to design a cover of sorts to transform the shift lever, and I had purchased a used BMW G01 LHD shifter assembly on Ebay. Having a 'test' shifter outside of my car allowed me to complete the project faster since I didn't need constant access to the interior of my daily driver.

View attachment 7855224

The first step was scanning the shifter to capture the complex curves and edges that would be in intimate contact with the new clamshell housing. This was accomplished with both a 'contact' scan arm (6-axis CMM) and a laser scanner. Some of these pics show the test shifter covered in powder to help the laser scanner get a good read on the glossy black surfaces. Measuring all of this gave me precise dimensions as well as accurate surfaces to work with in CAD. We then built up a 3D CAD model that allowed us to generate many housing variations within this environment.

View attachment 7855225 View attachment 7855226

I am fortunate to have these tools available at work, but I am even more fortunate to have some very talented co-workers that enjoy a challenge. A few of them have contributed mightily to the aesthetic and ergonomic design as we progressed through a series of shapes and styles. Our Industrial Designer is a true artist, and she produced dozens of style sketches that influenced the design details, even as the shape morphed dramatically from our original assumptions.

View attachment 7855227

Next, we started 3D-printing for ergonomic checks and installing the best of those in my car for in-vehicle iteration. Driving around with these new housings in place allowed me to live with the shapes day after day, and observe how the user experience was impacted. I think we have now printed 9 numbered test prototypes, and many others that didn't survive long enough to get a number.

View attachment 7855229 View attachment 7855230

View attachment 7855228

A few things that were revealed along the way:
- Flat-ish hand position is a must. Once you have it you will never go back.
- Bulky, chamfered shapes fit the Grenadier aesthetic, and they can still be ergonomic if applied thoughtfully
- If the shifter grows too wide, then it encroaches into the xfer case lever area. For the LHD market, this can cause the trans shifter to be bumped into Manual mode when unlocking the center diff. Shifter total width is a delicate balance.
- I don't need the PRND/M indication on the lever, since it is displayed larger up on the screen anyway (where your hand is not in the way of seeing it)
- I stopped looking at the shifter entirely when we created a channel to guide my thumb from the Unlock button over to the Park button

This last one was significant. I didn't realize how helpful this is until I drove my car again without the housing in place. The yam-shaped shifter offers no tactile feedback to help you find the Park button with confidence.

View attachment 7855231

In the end, I believe that the ergonomic improvements to the shifter are even more valuable than the aesthetic improvements. Ergonomics was not what motivated the effort originally, but by paying attention to the details along the way, we ended up with a better user experience.

For feedback sake, aesthetically, the version with the enclosed P button looks better/cleaner IMO than the seat belt cutter looking, open version. Is there a functional reason the enclosed prototype was dropped?

Reminds me vaguely of the throttle of an aircraft, which goes along with the switch panels of the IG.

I’d imagine the gap between the cover and the base of the shifter is going to be a dust/crumb/debris catcher if left uncovered.

High marks for thinking outside the box. Good luck.

 

[ADVAW8S]

@BenTN. Thanks for sharing the design process. One change if possible is making it more of a slant that starts from your pointer finger to your pinky. For example stick out your hand plam down. Now rotate your hand with your thumb at the 10 o'clock position. Now grab the imaginary shifter. It's natural. The shifter is still flat but more contoured to fit the natural flow of the hand.

 

[DaBull]

Does the new Land Rover Defender shifter fit??? While I was waiting for my Grenadier for the past 2 years, I was wondering how I was going to "fix" that BMW shifter... One of my ideas was to buy a Land Rover/Jaguar version off ebay, however they are not cheap.

I do like your concept though. Keep up the good work.

Hi NixGrenadier2023, I currently own a New 2020 Land Rover Defender. I have never enjoyed the way the automatic shifter works and would not recommend trying to duplicate it. After getting used to the Grenadier Shifter, it is a pure joy to use when compared to the New Defender Shifter. DaBull

 

[NixGrenadier2023]

Hi DaBull, noted. I haven't had an automatic for 35 years, so trying to use the BMW shifter is not comfortable for me even after 4 months (16,000km). I guess I'm comparing it to my last auto, a 1973 Ford T-bar shifter...

 

[Jeffrey]

Gee, Ben, you sure are into this shifter thing. I have no problem with it. Looks OK, works fine. I have more important things to do with my time.

 

[Cheshire cat]

Part 4: Progress and Plans

With the detailed CAD data sorted out and the ergonomics working well, we are now playing with the style elements and manufacturing details. This is the phase where sufficient prototype iterations really pay off. Every day we 3D-print new shapes and textures to improve the feel and look of certain details about the shifter. I think it is coming along nicely. The pic below shows some recent sketches and a small prototype that we used to improve the blend between a couple faces where the texture changes. These details may seem trivial but when your hand touches this edge multiple times a day it matters.
View attachment 7855243

We have created a few possible variations worth mentioning:
- with inset red lambda
- with PRND/M indication exposed
- with a location for the Global Grenadiers (forum) badge to reside
- all sorts of color variations

It's not too late to give input on your favorite design elements.

View attachment 7855244

I'm not sure what exactly comes at the end of this project. It is a great training and development exercise for me and the staff at our office, so we will definitely see it through to a "final" version. Of course final is relative, since we could continue to improve or create variations forever. As a good friend likes to say: "At some point you have to shoot the engineer and go into production." But first we might do a "focus group" test and send a batch of these out to forum members and get their feedback.

I don't know if there is market justification for an injection molded version of this design. Tooling (mold) investment for US manufacturing of the cosmetic housings for both LHD and RHD vehicles is expensive. (Hmmm, perhaps I have come to the same conclusion that Ineos did...) Ultimately I might consider running batches of these as a 3D-printed product for a while. If there is sufficient interest maybe Stu will distribute them via the forum store, like we did with the reverse camera glare shrouds.

It's been a fun project so far.

View attachment 7855242

Very interesting to see how a component is designed and developed. Looking forward to seeing the working model.
Personally I have no issues with the BMW inspired shifter however, I know that many do. Perhaps when I read some feedback on the new product, it will become a 'must' for me too.

 

[Tazzieman]

"First world problem ... the existing shifter works as it should ...Next please.. "

But it isn't billet or tactical, nor even CF

 

[Cheshire cat]

But it isn't billet or tactical, nor even CF

Not yet. That too will come

 

[Tazzieman]

Not yet. That too will come

A Sopwith joystick, or ir's nothing.

 

[Cheshire cat]

This one recently caught my attention. Was also impressed at the legroom found in the Typhoon when compared to Grenadier