[brianbot5000]

Well, it's a self-fulfilling prophecy I guess... Literally the day after I made the post above about being paranoid, I had the idle dip occur, and say what you will I know it simply wasn't a matter of being paranoid. Based on what I saw/heard, and what I've read in various threads here, I think the chirping and dip are related. Here's what happened in my case:

- Took an evening drive to the store, took the scenic route...maybe 10 miles in total each way, but that included a brief jaunt on the freeway and a couple spirited back roads. Nothing crazy, as I'm still under the break-in mileage and so I'm staying below 4-4.5k.

- As a result of the drive, engine was warmed up - more so than it gets during my typical commute.

- As I'm easing into my garage, I have the window down, and I notice the crickets are louder than usual. The difference was noticeable.

- Decide I'll sit there a minute and let her idle. Something just didn't seem right...you start to learn what your car's "normal" sound and feel is, and this wasn't it. Idle was stable, but then out of the blue it drops, then picks back up...starts to drop again and so I shut it down.

I've heard other reports of the crickets being unusually louder before the idle drop, and it seems that the trend is for the idle drop to occur when the car has been driven awhile and engine temps are nice and warm. No CEL, and honestly I'm hoping I don't have one long enough for a fix to be released by Subaru. I'm a little worried about driving too much in the meantime, in case this is causing some other engine damage.

Issue stressed me out a bit so I drove my truck to work the next day. But drove the BRZ to work and back today with no issues, aside from the usual crickets. I think if your trips are short, you are not likely to experience this issue.