2004 Prius: Troubleshooting Cruise Control

First I personally would probably get the CM monitor or the display that you're talking about fixed It's a standard problem makes the car hard to turn off so on and so forth You need to fix that first and see if that restores everything in your steering wheel and in general in the car If it does not then you can worry about the clock spring and that is an inexpensive repair with a factory part or not doesn't matter I have both both are still holding up so I can't say a cheap clock spring is a bad thing like it is with the inverter pump at least so far I also have enough cars around I can take clock springs off of they seem to be like some kind of a wear item sort of the car hasn't been driven a lot.

 

fwiw I have been living with a failed combo meter for nearly 10 years now that began as intermittent but only ever comes on a handful of times a year now if I'm lucky.

one of the first things I noticed was that when my combo meter was inoperable, I had no cruise control.

they seem to be linked in my experience, unfortunately.

 

See that's the thing. Do you have a code for the CM monitor has stopped communicating in any of the software you use for codes You should have in my gold 09 car I've never had the CM monitor has stopped communicating code The CM monitor used to have no display whenever it seemed to want to but my cruise if I'm not mistaken always worked but I also did not have the code for the CM monitor has stopped communicating. Fast forward 2 years and I get an '08 car that within 2 weeks of ownership of the car the display goes out but yet in this vehicle in the Toyota software I have the CM monitor has stopped communicating I shouldn't have the code by heart I'm so used to seeing it in this vehicle I had never seen that before in three or four years of ownership of my '09 work vehicle same car different year no different glitches or anything to make this happen as far as I know in the car with the CM monitor code and the CM monitor not working other than having to hold the start button in to make the car go off I want to say everything worked on that car too I had Cruise I generally know this because I use it ridiculously a lot in the Prius I never had any other model of car but in the Prius it seems to make things do very well even on backcountry roads. So I think that's kind of interesting actually I'm sure I'll soon have another car with the CM monitor not working with or without the code and I'll run through the cruise again I see these weekly I don't always buy them but I see them and get to try them out or do whatever I want but I thought Mike cruise control generally worked even without the display The only cruise control so far that I had that did not work was the late 05 and changing the clock spring restored the cruise and some other buttons on the steering wheel that I think weren't working but I don't use those a lot so I'm old school I still reach for the stereo knob not push a button I like the Prius has both but I usually use the knob

 

This makes me lean toward suspecting the cruise stalk itself (the same way I would suspect the spiral cable, if you had said "every time I turn the wheel a certain way, cruise turns on every time").

 

So, repairing the CM is just a good idea - period. Everything that I have read here indicates that using TexasHybridBatteries.com is a good choice. They can either repair your CM, or ship one to you (on exchange basis) that has your odometer reading programmed into it.

The C/C does sound like it could be a problem with the switch-stalk. An "easy" way to test this would be to use a capable scantool to monitor the C/C switch inputs for Hybrid Vehicle control ecu data.

If the data consistently shows on or off only when you lean "just right" on the stalk (but is not affected by steering wheel position), then it's the switch assembly.

Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.

 

I'd love to see a broken cruise control switch I've seen everything on the steering wheel break button-wise and what have you but never the cruise control It always turns on when you push the button and tries to set or decelerator whatever it is you want it to do whether it makes the full connection to whatever's down the line and needs to be done I would think would be the wiring or whatever it is in the clock spring that lets the signal go on down the line but I mean even the cruise control switch is similar to this all the way back to the '80s I don't think I've ever seen one broken I would love to I know everything in this world can break but I haven't seen this particular switch assembly I take them off all the time at the junkyard when I'm taking steering wheels off I rarely save the switch