[txusa03]

I will admit that the armrest works great with 1 gear. But I have had the pleasure of experimenting with this and equally happy to report that the armrest works great without the gear (I see no difference in how the armrest open and close with that one gear).

I came to this conclusion because when I first received the items (spring and gear), I was not sure where the gear goes so I only installed the spring and been using the armrest daily with only the spring. Not until recently our helpful member (bimmernupe07) provided me some insight on where this gear should be installed did I go back and added the gear. Now with the gear added along with the spring, I still do not see a change in how it opens/closes.

I suspect that the gear is there to provide some sort of counter action on the tension of the spring to slow down the open movement of the armrest. The spring has too much tension that if you press on the open latch, the armrest will sling up with lots of forces (try it and you will know what I am talking about). With the gear, I thought it might counter the spring force but I was wrong. So that is where I thought maybe 2 of those gears will do the job to counter the tension on the spring.

Just my 2cents.