I don't think there's any disagreement that its a benefit for sure. Just that its a benefit, not a required piece of safety equipment like seatbelts or airbags. There's not a single car (legal anyway) that doesn't have seatbelts and airbags, but there's plenty without traction control systems. Therein lies my [respectful] disagreement with AJ on the topic of whether we should be able to do a special key dance to keep TCS off while on long off-road excursions. ... the risk of leaving it off, IMO, is minimal and not nearly on the level of "unsafe" as is not wearing seatbelts since leaving it off would put us in similar (and still somewhat better) traction &control situations than many other non-awd vehicles on the road, aaaand disabling TCS doesn't disable our airbags or seatbelts