The True Cost of the Fanatec CSL Direct Drive

The Fanatec CSL Direct drive wheelbase is arguably the most exciting sim racing product that has been released in the last few years. The idea of a budget direct-drive wheel is fascinating, considering it's something that would otherwise be unattainable for the large majority of consumers. But as cool as a $350 direct drive wheel is, I still don’t think it's as “low-budget” as many put it out to be… let me explain.

You see, the $350 only covers the wheelbase, meaning there are still a bunch of other things to account for. From what I’ve heard, and what I think most of you all will agree on, is that if you’re purchasing the CSL DD, you pretty much also need to buy the additional boost kit to make the most out of this wheelbase. So for this, you have two options, either buy the wheel and the boost kit separately, which will cost $350 for the CSL DD and an additional $150 for the boost kit, or you can buy them in a bundle that will come out to $480 - just for the wheelbase that is. Oh wait, you can’t forget about mounting it - if you have a sturdy cockpit, you’ll be fine, but if you play on a desk, you’ll need to purchase the CSL Table Clamp for an additional $30. But unless you’re already in the Fanatec ecosystem, meaning you own their wheels, pedals, and other accessories, you also need to account for these. So let's do that while also trying to keep the costs as low as possible. From what I understand, the least expensive Fanatec wheel add-on is the McLaren GT3 V2 rim which comes in at $200, or the CSL elite steering wheel which comes in at the same price. Buying them new from Fanatec that is.

So now that you have the wheel and the wheelbase, you’ll also need the pedals. The good news is that Fanatec has recently released the CSL pedals which come in at $80. But if you’re driving with a direct drive wheelbase, it won’t be long until you’ll want to buy the load cell kit for them which unfortunately hasn’t been released or even really announced yet, but for the sake of this, I think it’ll cost like $130 more since Fanatec claims the load cell kit will be sub 200 but that's just a wild guess. So now that you have the wheelbase, the wheel, and a set of pedals, you’re good to go for a total of $890 which covers the direct drive wheelbase with the boost kit as a bundle, the McLaren V2 wheel rim, and the CSL Pedals with a load cell kit that I estimated to cost $130 more than the $80 set of pedals. If you need a table clamp, want a warranty for the wheel, or another more expensive wheel rim, you’ll pay even more oh... and that $890 isn’t accounting for taxes nor shipping I should note.

So what I'm trying to say, is that as cool as a $350 wheelbase is, unless you’re already in the Fanatec ecosystem, it's not quite as “attainable” as I feel like many have made it seem as you’ll realistically still be dropping around one grand to move to the Fanatec ecosystem. Now don’t get me wrong, I know that for the money there is still nothing that even comes close in the market.