ORIGINAL: mybrokenblinker

no one said the stock tranny couldn't handle it...it's a preventative measure to help maintain the life of your vehicle. If you would like to downshift everytime you come to a stop go right ahead, just know it's harder on your tranny than shifting to neutral and leaving it there, which also keeps you from having to hold down the clutch at a light and put wear on the throwout bearing. Also, those of you who talk about using compression braking as added stopping power? come on guys, regardless of whether you're in gear or not, the brakes are powerful enough to skid the tires and what limits stopping distance is tire adhesion, not brakes really (lets not get into breaking power front to rear cuz compression braking would only help front anyway, and the brakes are enough to skid those for sure.) The only instance where compression braking MIGHT be better for your car is long stretches of downhill to keep from riding the brakes, and even there we're only talking about like 3k rpm's. okay im done. And please, scubadoguk, drop the comparisons with automatics, i don't want to get in a torque converter conversation as well and i have a feeling that's where the discussions with comparisons would end up. Ok, now i'm really done.