This is becoming an increasingly common mod among smart owners due to the low price of the metal replacements from Germany.

Here you can see just how different the paddles actually are, not only are they metal, they are lighter, thinner and bigger.

Note: these paddles can only be fitted to G2 cars, 2003 onwards, and will not fit any aftermarket kits.

The first thing that will spring to mind is how to remove the old ones, this is very simple.... Just pull them away from the centre of the steering wheel, shown below.

Once unclipped they just slide out of the frame.

With the old plastic paddles off you are ready to move on to fitting the new ones. You will only need the most basic of tools. (shown below).

The paddles slide onto the old mount on the back steering wheel with the screw passing through the mount and into the nut.

Here are a few pictures that show you close up what needs to be fastened. Because of the limited space, and how small everything is, we removed a set of mounts to try and show you in detail just how they attach.

Make sure, when these are fitted to the wheel, that you tighten them up to a reasonable level. Due to how small the fixings are, they seem to work undone under use.

We would advise you use a small amount of loctite to stop the tiny nuts from spinning loose over time.