I have never heard of anything like this.
http://autos.msn.com/advice/article....22806&src=News
Quote:
Stand By for Take-Off . . .
Still, the marketers insist that's what the customer wants, choice, and the engineers have delivered—and then they've added that ultimate option, launch control, which goes like this: Select full, 507-horsepower grunt via the one-touch "M Drive" button on the wheel (which also optimizes the damper and stability settings and turns the effective and clear head-up instrument display into a rev-counter and gearshift indicator. Now disable the Dynamic Stability Control, select the most aggressive of the "S" shift programs, hold the gearshift lever forward and floor the throttle.
The engine builds to optimum launch revs and stays there until you let go of the lever. Then the car catapults forwards with a chirp of tires and a mighty howl of power while you keep the pedal buried in the luxurious carpet. When the revs peak, it slams into the next gear and rides out the wheelspin, and then the same again, and again, and again—with barely describable violence—until it hits the M5's voluntarily restricted 250 kph (155 mph) maximum, or in our case, an indicated 272 kph (170 mph), which the engineers put down to "tolerances."
This is a very impressive feature but also worryingly brutal, and you wonder what it's for, since it's also thoroughly anti-social. Besides, if you do it more than twice in succession you have to give the car time to recover and re-program the whole thing all over again.
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According to my friend who is big in to bimmers, the European M3 has this "feature" as well. And if you do it more than 20 times over the life of the car, you void the warranty on your engine and tranny.
Talk about over-engineered.