Electric issue - Cruise Control - Toyota Nation Forum : Toyota Car and Truck Forums

MR2 Guy · 12-28-2010, 09:58 PM

Hello all, It has been a long time since I last posted on this forum. Things have been great with my 91 turbo. No issues...until now. I just moved to SoCal and I ran into the misfortune of bad weather; I mean real bad weather. I live in an apartment, the car sleeps outside and it rained for 5 days non stop. I didn't think much of it at the time, but now looking back I should have covered the car, because it was a serious downpour for 5 consecutive days. Any way, long story short I'm noticing an electric problem; specifically with the cruise control feature of the car; which I believe may have been attributed to the downpour. When driving on the highway, I turn on cruise control and in a couple of minutes the light starts to flash, making the engine sputter/slow down and then the light goes off; effectively turning off the cruise control. When the cruise control light turns off, the car disengages the cruise control and I can no longer turn it on. Only when I turn the car off and back on do I get a second chance to turn on the cruise control, yet again, without fail, soon after I start using it, the cruise control turns itself off. I am at a loss of where to start trouble shooting. Could it be that all the rain damaged an electrical component? Is there a fuse that regulates this that I can replace? Not sure where to go from here but I would appreciate any help/advice of where to start looking/testing. Thanks much and I hope everyone had a very merry Christmas.

andyb16 · 12-30-2010, 07:19 AM

Don't know how much help this will be, but the cruise control module is in the very back passenger side of the engine bay. You could try pulling it and seeing if it has water damage, or try swapping it out with another one if you can get ahold of one. I don't know if there's a fuse specifically for cruise or not.

***MR2Jedi*** · 12-30-2010, 10:19 AM

Besides the unit in the engine bay Andy described, there is the computer control unit behind the glove box and the control lever on the steering column. Any of those things can be responsible for its failure.
Mine doesn't work either, but I've never messed with it.

***ModifierMR*** · 12-30-2010, 11:29 AM

The cruise control unit is sensing a fault and is turning off to prevent damage. Thats why the light flashes and will not come back on until you shut the car off. Take a look at the cruise control unit, if you can remove any covers and try twisting the throttle on the Cruise control, see if it is stuck or doesnt move well. It could just be a bad unit that coincidentally died around the time of the rain storm.

MR2 Guy · 12-30-2010, 04:04 PM

Thank you all for your replies. At least I have an idea of where in the vehicle to start looking/trouble shooting. I tried driving home again last night with the cruise on and it worked. Not sure what that means, but I will have to take a look and see if I notice any abnormalities in terms of wires being wet or so. I'll definitely post my status later on. Thanks for the help and I wish everyone a happy new year!