I was installing my Nismo exhaust last night and noticed there was a black powdery substance clinging everywhere under the shifter, falling all over me, etc. When I looked for the source, I discovered the black rubber boot covering the bottom of the shifter linkage had torn and was hanging down and being slowly ground to powder by the drive shaft. I couldn't salvage it, so I just cut off the part that was hanging down, but now the shift linkage is exposed. Do I need to be concerned about this? It looks like it would be a major PITA to replace (exhaust and driveshaft would have to come out and shift linkage disassembled), so I'm wondering if I can just leave it. The underside of my car is pristine and I don't drive it in rain or in dirty conditions. Thoughts?

Weird thing is, I just had a new transmission put in about 7 months ago; you'd think they would have seen the problem...

 

Maybe they caused the problem!

 

Bring it in and let the dealer mess with fixing it.

 

Hard telling if they did it or not; I'd have a hard time proving they did, so I'd rather just not mess with the dealer.