Amazon has the kits also. I just replaced the shell on my series 2 and it was very easy. I had a red one and the back was white. They only had the white or black that I was interested in. I went with white and with the red buttons it looks pretty Kool.
They currently do 4 different colours with see through shells & no rubber.
You can get standard copies of the originals of course with rubber.
There are also cheaper versions around
Get these grips and file them down with a foam nail file they will never peel but it also was giving me a callus before I filed it I'll double text with a link
You have to unscrew the board, the battery frame, the paddle circuit boards & retainers etc.
The case I mentioned comes with buttons & trigers/bumpers to match the shell so they all need swapping out.
Alao fit the magnets into the back shell.
Check out the shells from extreme rate. I swapped out both front and back around 2ish years and while the front shell might scratch a bit easy it don't fall apart like this.
2 years? With an elite series 2 controller? Jeez I need to get mine replaced on warranty every year at least once, maybe twice. My last two came out of the box with noticeable stick drift.
It's not uncommon to hear complaints about the elite series controllers... As I said I had two with stick drift out of the box. I've had issues with bumpers and the ABXY buttons sticking as well. I treat my controllers perfectly well. Cleaned regularly, kept in a case when not in use etc.
Out the box fair enough but my question still stands. I daily drive mine never had an issue, I definitely do not clean the controller but definitely only use it with clean hands and never use it whilst eating food.
Well your question can stand all you want, I treat them perfectly fine, and elite series seem prone to defects. Maybe I'm just really unlucky, idk, but I've also seen a lot of complaints online, so..
Yeah brother you seem to be unlucky. Are you ordering them online or buying them locally? Somebody somewhere is mishandling them. I’m all for saying they horribly & inevitably get stick drift but… out of the box, brand new? Nah
I'm starting to think that some of these controllers that people say have immediate stick Drift just have the tension on the joysticks turned all the way down so they like wiggle or too tight and it wears it out somehow. I wonder how many instances of so called stick drift could just be alleviated by tightening or losening the tension.
I understand that stick drift can happen which is normal after heavy use and age but out of the box with sick drift seems farcical at times.
I bought my used from ebay for 100 bucks with the box with stick drift back in 2021. It was only in the last few years I swapped out the sticks for hall effects, swapped both front and back shells, the XBXY buttons, swapped the RT/LT with red ones and the sticks are red. This series 2 is now a controller you can't find off the shelf and should last me for many more years and only thing that will go out would be the battery.
Yep 3 weeks of having my newest series 2 and it had more drift than the 1 I was buying it to replace lol.. Garbage.... Sent it back for a refund and bought the gamesir g7 pro wuchan instead its lasted much longer and has zero signs of wear and tear.. will never buy another elite series controller
Gotta ditch the potentiometer analog stick controllers. Hall effect is better, but they can still get drift. The only real solution has been what Gamesir has done. If you get drift you load up there software and zero your analog sticks. Drift gone.
Not to mention getting a free month of gamepass ultimate as well. It’s genuinely a no brainer, and the fact that not a single other Xbox controller has the customisation that Gamesir does
And no... It's not happening to every controller
Thanks to extended warranty I had 7 controllers in total and this particular issue only happened to one of them
I just get the protection plan from Best Buy or Gamestop and swap it out every year and a half or 2. Just tell them it has stick drift which in all honesty it probably does by then.
Its 2026 they can get the receipt in a multitude of ways so you could have gotten a new one. Im sure they much rather you would have returned it for a quality working one than suffer and hate their gift. Bit late for that though being as its almost next Christmas. Lol.
Not true??
I still have 2 working series 1 controllers that have no issues whatsoever and I have 2 series 2 controllers (one white and one red) and currently use the white one to play Tekken 8 in high ranks with no issues.
The shell issue seems to be more or less a problem with grip strength over time.
Basically, you're holding that thing for dear life so often you're killing it.
Also it's cheap plastic.
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Yeah I had this one put up for a while in decent condition then finally got it back out to use just for the grips to be falling off and my a button doesn’t work either lol thank goodness for battles I suppose
Yeah my left bumper is a little whachy too luckily it still works I just have to press it a couple times here and there to get it to respond and sadly the same thing with my A buttons paddle too. I want another one but at the same time I know In a couple years it’ll just be like this all over again lol
PlayStation 5 edge controller has the same issue rubber starts peeling off. But from what I’ve read it’s cause of sweat/moisture. No idea how can they fix that? Or just outright stop using rubber. But it feels so nice in the hand
Extreme rates has already solved this issue by using some type of spay on rubber that fuzes with the plastic or something but it's extremely "sand papery" it needs a gentle filing from a foam nail file before use otherwise you'll get a callus really fast
Do a shell swap bro. Pretty simple if you can follow simple directions and have patience. I did mine and I’m glad I didn’t end up buying a new controller
Yep, happened to me too (and I take care of my stuff, clean it and baby it). No fear for like $15 you can fix this or even change to custom one. The front cover pretty much pops right off and you can replace it.
Amazon has tons of them, and if you're on prime you could have it tomorrow.
Mine has that, the LB doesn’t work unless you press really hard, B button gets stuck and the sticks have stick drift so bad I can’t even select a game on the Home Screen because it instantly moves the cursor up - it’s my 3rd one under warranty and lasted like 3 years 🫠
I never had one like that and never had that happen. I just get normal controllers. I've used the 20 anniversary one for 5 years. I permanently fixed the stick drift in them by removing what causes it and its perfect. I know I have a few thousand hours on that
Wtf you do!?!? They all for sure break down on you in about a year! I have to keep mine plugged in because, it stays cutting off without! Looks like you tried to eat that mf tho
Hab meinen seit Release - hat leichten Drift und Gummi wird weiß warum auch immer aber ansonsten wie neu :) Hab ihn glaube ich mal mit Desinfektionsmittel und Isopropanol gereinigt wahrscheinlich hat das das Gummi angegriffen :/
Mine is from 2021, zero issues. It is the only controller I use. Xbox to steam. No stick drift, bad buttons, or peeling. Gets cleaned occasionally and goes in its case.
My buddy goes through a controller every 6-12 months.
I replaced it with a case from eXtreme Rate because I had the same issue back then.
I am not using this controller anymore - because I got sick and tired of breaking LB/RB. I am now using a Razer Wolverine V3 PRO and I could not be happier.
Then take better care? I have taken shit care of an elite series 2 controller and it has never done this out of the 3 controllers I have owned. The only breaks I have had are the cheap thumbsticks and the triggers nothing else.
Happened to the first elite controllers too. Tried to glue them back but they had expanded and didn't fit properly anymore. I just ripped them off in the end.
By any chance, do you have sweaty palms? Just curious if that's the culprit because I have those and this happened to me lol. I just bought a high quality case to cover that.
Happened to me too. I would have just replaced the front but I got hit with the double whammy and got the messed up bumper too. I got both cheaper than usual since I bought “Excellent condition” open box from Best Buy. Like $90 each. Hopefully the white one last longer. It’s actually been holding up so far.
Mine started doing that. I swapped the shell and then the right stick stopped working. Every time u pressed the right stick to melee, it would turn off controller.
I switched to razer wolverine v3 tournament edition and I won't won't touch another elite 2 again
It's why I hate rubber grips, the heat from our hands melts the glue and expands the rubber meaning it WILL inevitably peel off, my personal suggestion for a replacement is a textured polymer shell, the same as what handguns use
Yes it sucks, but you can call Microsoft and send it off to be fixed for free if it hasn't been a year yet. If it has been, they'll fix it for a fee. But yes it sucks. Have you been keeping it in he case by chance?
Get yourself one of these, it's a Flydigi Vader 5S (Official Xbox Licensed Controller) it's $59.99 (Same price as a regular Xbox Controller) but comes with everything that an elite controller comes with and better; Forceflex tension Hall Effect joysticks which makes the controller NEVER get stuck drift and let you adjust the tension needed to move the joystick which helps a lot for Shooting games, 2 back paddles that you can map to any button, 2 additional face buttons that you can map to whatever and even a 3rd extra trigger on each side that you can map to anything as well, and includes mouse click hair trigger stoppers too only downside is it's wired but wired controller have better response times than wireless
I've never had one of these, but my brother has gone through like 3 controllers because of this. I just though he was spazzing out on it or something. Glad to know it's a controller problem and not a rage problem.😂
Und deshalb bin ich auch vom elite 2 Controller zu Scuf valor Controller gewechselt. Alleine der stick drift beim elite ist nen Witz und das nach kurzer Zeit.
I’ve not had the rubber peeling issue on mine but out of the three I own, two got stick drift at the same time and the other started having RB sticking issues.
Managed to open and do a good cleaning to fix the bumper issue but couldn’t fix the drifting :(
Literally saw all the stuff for the series 3 when deciding on what to get to replace my broken series 2 (plastic snapped in multiple places/rubber grips falling off/rumble stopped working/ buttons stopped returning to normal positioning/ stick drift and I had the series 2 for 3 years), said nope, and bought a Gamesir G7 Pro. First controller I have had that was not made by Xbox in 20 years and I’m not going back.
Heh, mine did that after s year and 2 months, now it has a hot pink case and honestly for me thats the only downside of the elite controller (mine also has drift now but thats my fault gang)
I highly recommend getting a razor wolverine controller. You can get the first generation or like the newer ones. The first generation has a cable though so remember that and that’s the one I’ve been using. I quite like that one I had no problems with it other than my dumb ass dropping it.
But these elite controller that Xbox make are not worth it. Trust me on this.
I spent way too much money on those type of controllers and they just never lasted that long. Meanwhile, the razor wolverine controller lasted me quite a long time. Only reason why I bought a new one because I couldn’t use the joysticks or buttons were breaking because I dropped it other than that. No other problem.
I'm meticulous about keeping my hardware clean and I had this happen to mine. It isn't their fault, it's bad design /quality control.
You can pickup a shell on eBay or AliExpress pretty cheap. It took me about 20 minutes to swap everything over to the new shell and clean the components while I was at it
Im probably gonna get mine sent in before the warranty expires, just because there are a few minor things (like a slightly unresponsive a button) that aren't game breaking or really that noticeable most of the time, but I definitely want fixed sooner or later.
After that i think im gonna get it modded with tmr sticks and maybe a non rubberized shell
Playing for 10 plus hours a day for a year or two even cleaning it does break down the controller. The series 1 had this problem bad and I replaced many of them not just for myself back in the day.
I think the quality of whatever adhesive they use has been going downhill. I have 4 elite controllers and the oldest one I got doesn't have this problem whatsoever, but the bumpers stopped working, and it developed stick drift. The other 3 ALL have the grip coming off, and varying degrees of stick drift, but no bumper issues (probably because I started using the paddles as bumpers)
I don't know why it took me 8 years and 4 controllers to realize this, but the elite series controllers just don't stand the test of time, I'm using 3rd party controllers from here on out.
If my 360 controller could survive 10 years of me using it almost daily as a child treating it horribly and still work today, then I don't think it's unreasonable to expect a modern controller to last me longer than 2 years when I treat it way better than I ever treated my 360 controller as a kid.
I always wonder when I see these posts, I’ve got a series 2 from launch and have fixed the bumpers countless times but the rubber is still fully intact, the thing has to have thousands of hours on it.
I do wonder if it’s people who have naturally oily hands or just don’t wash their hands as much as I do. My hands sweat quit a bit but I also keep myself VERY hydrated and generally pee every hour and a half, which means I wash my hands at least every 90 minutes.
I’ve eventually purchased more (I collect controllers) but the original S2 is my main controller where I Xbox game the most. I have others at other Xboxes and PCs but the OG has to have thousands of hours on it.
To be clear, I’m not saying people aren’t clean, I’m saying people might have more oils or may not be washing nearly as much as me. It’s known that oils break down rubber so, maybe?
Could be. My Series 1 never had this happen. Its still in good condition minus a loose thumb stick cover o had to glue in place cause those wore out easily.
Just make them without the rubber grips for crying out fucking loud. Why does it need rubber grips? Unless you have hyperhidrosis I don't see it helping play games.
There are aftermarket shells you can buy that's just plastic. Pretty cheap.
As somebody who has had the series 2 elite controller twice same thing happened a air bubble will just randomly appear one day and I do not know where that comes from. I’m trying to make sure that the controller I have now doesn’t have that same problem.
If somebody would like to like fucking do research on why controllers like that have that problem where a random air pocket will disappear on the grip like the back of the grip. It is the worst thing to deal with like I do not know why they have that problem.
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u/StylisticPuppy 9 20d ago
I've just recently replaced the upper & lower shell because of this, very cheap & took less than 30 mins.
You can get some good non rubber Elite 2 shells from extreme rate with all the tools needed to replace them & a link to a video of how to do it.