996 Tip gear lever issue (moving from manual to auto over bumps)

[torontoworker]

My 99 996C2’s tiptronic gear lever is jumping out of manual to auto setting over bumps or from road vibration. I am unable to determine if this assembly employs a spring or friction device that keeps the gear lever ‘snapped’ over in the two different positions. This failure suddenly occurred and wasn’t a gradual issue which leaves me to believe there is a spring involved. Looking on factory parts lists and diagrams I can see no image or description of a spring for this type of use. The gear lever currently flops back and forth. It doesn’t seem to require much force to hold in manual as a rubber band actually works quite well! I find it hard to believe it is a plastic gate that provides this friction and this part has now worn out as it failed instantly without warning. The OEM assembly is stupidly expensive (over a $1000) and eBay used parts are suspect in amount of wear and quality. So unless anyone has a part number for a spring or any info on this I may have to take apart the assembly and Macgyver up a tension spring. Are any of you familiar with this type of failure? Thanks.