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"Check Cruise Control System" after flat tire

Discussion in 'Prius c Care, Maintenance and Troubleshooting' started by Rdbrulz, Oct 19, 2018.

  1. Rdbrulz

    Rdbrulz Junior Member

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    Vehicle is a 2013 Prius C 3

    Hi everyone, I'm hoping someone can help shed some light on what's happening here. So I'll walk you through it.

    I got a flat tire, put the spare on, while driving home slowly with the spare on I turned on the cruise control without thinking. It worked for about 30 seconds and then I'm assuming because of the difference in handling it shut off and the dash light lit to show something is wrong with it. I replaced the damaged tire as well as my other front tire and the light is still lit. I can turn on cruise control, the light showing on the dash, but when I go to set the cruise control speed I get "Check cruise control system" pop up on the dash. I have an ODBII reader and checked to see if there were any codes that needed to be cleared and it showed nothing.

    Unless there is a huge coincidence here and a cable came loose or something else was damaged at the exact same time. I'm assuming I just tripped some sort of sensor or went out of a value threshold making the car think there's something actually wrong with the system. Does anyone know how to reset it?
     
  2. PriusCamper

    PriusCamper Senior Member

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    your obd2 reader must not be picking up the code that needs to be read... If you disconnect 12v battery for 5 mins or longer you''ll get the codes/warning lights cleared and you'll get a fresh start on whatever comes up next...
     
  3. Rdbrulz

    Rdbrulz Junior Member

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    That's what I wanted to hear, thanks. I'll give it a try tomorrow and see if ti fixes the issue.
     
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  4. Rdbrulz

    Rdbrulz Junior Member

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    Ok, that didn't do it. I disconnected the battery for over an hour. When I reconnected it and turned the car on, most of the lights on the dash stayed lit and once hitting the start button again, they started to clear one after the other until just the regular lights remained including the traction control light. So I did some research on it and I think it's possible one of two things are happening.

    1. I only swapped the front two tires and even though the back two tires are the same make and brand they have seen an extra season, meaning they are slightly more worn and would have a different diameter. So the wheel speed sensors are reading different values between the front and the back. This probably wouldn't be a big deal normally except that I enabled cruise control with the spare on and that tripped the system. Now it's still treating it like it's abnormal even though it's just slightly off. So I'm going to let some air out of the tires and go for a short drive and see if the system goes back to normal.

    2. When changing the tire on the side of the road I may have managed to damage the sensor for that tire. I don't think I interacted with anything behind the hub but it's possible that something happened and also possible my odb2 reader wouldn't be seeing that kind of fault.
     
  5. bisco

    bisco cookie crumbler

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    are all the tires at the same pressure?
     
  6. Rdbrulz

    Rdbrulz Junior Member

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    I actually haven't checked yet surprisingly, but now that it's been mentioned I guess that should have been my first step.
     
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  7. ztanos

    ztanos All-around Geek!

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    My sensor trips if I leave my cheap OBD 2 reader in the port, sometimes. It doesn't do it every time, just at weird random times. Are you running with a sensor in the port?
     
  8. PriusCamper

    PriusCamper Senior Member

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    Which sensor? Your car has more than a hundred of them...
     
  9. fuzzy1

    fuzzy1 Senior Member

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    This ought to be more of an ABS issue than a cruise control issue.

    In addition, it isn't as much tire diameter with tread wear that matters, but more the rolling circumference, which is set by the length of the steel belts beneath the tread. This is called out in the tire spec sheet as 'RPM' -- revolutions per mile.

    Do front and rear tires match not just on brand and model name, but also on designated size?
     
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  10. ztanos

    ztanos All-around Geek!

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    The ABS sensor and the cruise control sensor. The one's were talking about in this thread. I pulled my OBD 2 reader from the port and it went away after the next restart. I was then able to set cruise again and all was good.
     
  11. Mendel Leisk

    Mendel Leisk Senior Member

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    Funny thing is: I've stacked a regular tire and a temp spare, aligned them with a carpenter's square, and there was at most 1/8" difference in diameter. This is on a regular 3rd gen Prius, with the 215/45R17 wheels.
     
  12. Rdbrulz

    Rdbrulz Junior Member

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    Ok, update. I checked tire pressures and all four are reading 34. I haven't had a chance to take the tires off and check the sensors on the hubs but that will be my next step when I get some time.
     
  13. Rdbrulz

    Rdbrulz Junior Member

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    I do have an obd2 Bluetooth reader but I don't leave it plugged in and haven't left it plugged in except when doing troubleshooting during this.
     
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  14. Rdbrulz

    Rdbrulz Junior Member

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    Yes they match in size as well.
     
  15. Rdbrulz

    Rdbrulz Junior Member

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    Also, to add to this because on rereading my post I think it may have been a bit confusing. The light that is lit on my dash permanently is the abs/traction control light of the car "skidding". I can turn on cruise control, the cruise control light turns on. No errors. As soon as I set the cruise speed it displays the error "check cruise control system" and the dash light warning triangle flashes a number of times. It will continue to display the error on the screen until I turn off the cruise control system and if I turn it on again afterwards but before shutting the car off, it will immediately throw the same error without setting the speed again.

    Also other than getting a flat tire and swapping for a new tire I didn't touch or do anything to the hub or any other part of the car. The car has also driven just fine over the last few days. No issues. It feels a little different but I'm attributing that to the different feel of winter tires and I'm assuming traction control is changing that a bit too.
     
  16. fuzzy1

    fuzzy1 Senior Member

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    The cause of this must be fixed before you have any hope of using Cruise Control (CC).

    Using CC in skid-prone conditions is dangerous, so it makes sense that the car disconnects or disables it whenever any skid or loss of traction is detected. So if your tires are matched, the next step is to look for any sign of damage to the wheel speed sensors or their wiring back to the computers.
     
  17. ztanos

    ztanos All-around Geek!

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    That's the exact behavior mine was doing. I shut down the car, pulled out my adapter, turned the car back on and it was fine.
    I know you said that you didn't have an OBD2 permanently in the car, though. :(
    If I were to guess, I'd say it was one of the wheel speed sensors.