[sysfailur]

I will throw this out in this thread since the subject of accidents is being discussed. Let's not forget the importance of tires. I will admit that 3 years ago I made a mistake in my car before I realized just how terrible my stock summer tires (on a 2008 sti) were around 45F on a fall run. I had traction control off and even with AWD if your tires are not good in the cold, a little trickle of water in the road after rain in a curve can send you for a spin. It happened to me and I was probably going 30mph on a curve with an AWD car.

Morale of the story here is don't feel 100% safe or the master of your car at any point and try to take precautions when you can. I've never ever had my car kick out like it did that day, it felt like I was driving on ice and all I hit was about a 2-3" wide stream of water in a turn, with too cold tires and no TCS on.

Thankfully the damage was purely cosmetic (a scuffed wheel, some dirt, and a scratched bumper) but I learned that A: TCS stays in the green for me (middle option) during the summer. It allows for just a little of sliding but it's nearly impossible to break traction with my 275 star specs heh B: Learn your tires. My star specs seem to handle lower temps and rain far better than the SP 600 sports that came stock. But I still leave TCS fully on when it's colder than 45F and rainy out now. (And I've got a set of winter tires.) C: Turn TCS off only during auto-x or track days if you feel comfortable. I found that my fastest times and best handling came from TCS off in auto-x w/ diff fully to the rear but I would never drive like that on the street now!

I'm not sure how different the TCS is from my car to the BRZ but I would imagine it's fairly similar. From what I've read it has the same OFF, GREEN, and ON options + more. I'll definitely be playing with it at my first auto-x and in parking lots before I make any decisions on what to use for daily driving.

Anyway that's my 2 cents.