When you have a stage 2(996) or high ranges 4-6 (997) you definetly will have issues with warranty, and if you are pals with the dealer, he can't do anything, since they will hook your car up with Porsche thru internet, and they are the ones sayiing yeah's or nah's. In the other hand if your computer has issues, (like brain damage,etc) then.........cheers, Sonny.

 

I put mine in neutral all the time coming up to a light. A lot of wasted effort sitting there at a light with the foot on the clutch. Earlier I find it easier to go from neutral to 2nd or 1st (for accurate control), then sitting in 4th or 5th coming up to a light where you wouldn't get any power anyway and in an emergency would still need to go to 2nd or 1st at the low speeds coming up to a signal light. Shiftting is shifting wherever gear one is in. And too, with the gear shift in neutral at a light, life is sure a lot more pleasant especially with the long lights in my area. Gives me that one-feeling and only that one feeling of an automatic I used to like.

 

Automatics have a electronic control that won't let the transmission shift down to a forbidden gear....thus saving the "interference" engine. Porsche/BMW could have provided such a safety mechanism for the manual but never will. Now BMW provides a SMG transmission for M3s, this is a standard transmission, but shifts are mechanically accomplished electronically, so there is a safety mechanism built in to avoid overrevs from mistaken shifts.

In late 2001, many M3 engines were being shredded by drivers and BMW blamed owners for misshifts. Then one fellow had an SMG and did a study (via a forum like this one) and found just as many engines were in the toilet with SMGs as there were with standard transmissions. However, the SMG powertrains were electronically blocked from misshifts. When this data was gathered and sent to BMW, BMW finally omitted that it was their valve trains getting toileted (poor design of their new engine and a badly claimed 8K redline), not the drivers shifting into second at high speeds causing forced overrevs. Good piece of observation on an owner's part (and posting on a driver's forum-webpage like this one) was responsible for gathering all the info from all the unlucky drivers and forwarding this data to BMW. I then, got my engine fixed under warranty saving me $4-5 easily.