Cruise control works then won't work

BDPAPPY

MEMBER
1997 OLDSMOBILE CUTLASS
6 CYL
FWD
AUTOMATIC
180,000 MILES

I bought the car about 4 months ago. Cruise worked fine. I seemed to have issues after the intake manifold gaskets were replaced. Not sure if that has anything to do with it. Sometimes the cruise will engage & work completely proper. Braking resetting, resume all good, can even shut if off turn back on & works fine. But most of the time it will not engage. For a while if I shut the car off & get up to speed, press the cruise it would work again. Now lately that does not work all the time shutting the car down. I was told by a GM dealer it could be my cruise control module. Any ideas? Help please. Bruce

Monday, July 28th, 2014 AT 8:29 PM

1 Reply

CARADIODOC

MECHANIC
34,330 POSTS

There's other more likely suspects but no one should be guessing without doing a proper diagnosis. Visit a mechanic who will connect a scanner to view the state of the various inputs for the cruise system. That will show if the brake pedal is pressed, on / off switch is turned on, and things like that. If it shows, for example, the brake pedal is being pressed when it's not, you'd suspect the brake light switch. For the power switch, there's a "clock spring" under the steering wheel. That's a wound-up ribbon cable that commonly breaks. The clue there is eventually the horn will stop working too and the Air Bag light will turn on.

With Chrysler's scanners, they will show the "reason for last cutout", and I think that can be read on GM cars with aftermarket scanners too. That will tell you why the cruise won't set but you have to read that information on a test drive. If you try to read it in the shop, it will say, "vehicle speed too low". That is really helpful for intermittent problems.

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