I had a 2010 Boxster that when leaving a day at the track wouldn't move and had "catastrophic" transmission failure warnings on the dash. An overnight sitting at the dealership and all the warnings went away but I was spooked enough to bail on PDK and go back to a manual. I would say if you want a manual wait for one to become available. I lost faith in my car - just didn't trust it after the issue I had. I ended up selling it to my indy (with full disclosure of the problem I had). He dropped the transmission pan and didn't see any mechanical issues...we figured it was an electrical / sensor error due to the hard track driving. But even so I didn't trust the car.

 

You just haven't owned enough really unreliable cars - like a Jag XKE, or even one DL5 Volvo wagon, oh, and a VW first year Scirocco. Before I would have bailed on the PDK I probably would have done two things (1) Change the PDK clutch oil. It also is used in the valve body. It's called for replacement at 60k miles, but with track use - one of the people very enthusiastic about PDK on the track changes it after every track session and has never had a problem (of course he owns a shop, so it's a bit cheaper/easier for him) (2) Reset the control unit and learned behavior with a PIWIS.

How is your indy enjoying the PDK you sold him? Any issues? Since he dropped the pan that means he drained the PDK clutch oil and chances are - the problem won't reoccur.

Meanwhile, let me tell you about 6 months of owning an XKE....

 

It is not unusual for mechanical things to either fail early - - or live forever.