martin.ca said:your prospective driving style is strange. Put into drive and let the transmission do the shifting.
x2 I can't imagine manually dropping my transmission into second "if i want to accelerate slowly or pass someone on the highway", or into first for ANY reason whatsoever, aside from a low-speed towing/hill-climbing maneuver. I have 2.41s, so I can relate to highway gears. How about this: you shouldn't do this because the transmission already has a kick-down built into it. I guess I'm of the mindset, if you NEED to drop it down like this and the transmission isn't doing it when you think it ought to, then either the transmission isn't set up properly, or maybe you're asking too much of your combination. It's your car, you can of course do whatever makes you happy. I guess this is what they're talking about when they say things like "...depending on your driving style". 😀