[Ben123]

Hey guys,

I recently bought my first car, a 2001 Subaru Forester L, 5 speed manual, with just over 160,000 miles on it. Previous owner did all the maintenance, runs like a charm. Love the thing, its been great to me so far.

I went to go pick up my sister the other day and had to drive on the highway for about an hour. Long story short, my cruise control doesn't work. Did some research and here's what I found/fixed.

First, I noticed the cruise button (by the fog light switch) was dead, it wasn't lighting up. So I swapped the light bulbs and now everything lights up as it should.

Next, I read it could be the vacuum hose connecting the intake to the cruise control servo unit. Went to look at that, it was connected. I checked to see if it was blocked, by odd chance, and it was not.

I then found out, naturally, that there are switches under the pedals. I crawled under there and noticed that my brake switch, and both of my clutch switches worked perfectly, so that's not the problem either.

My horn works, so I've read that I can rule out the clockspring being the issue; is this true?

I'm at a complete loss. Any chance some of you veterans can help out a newbie?

Thanks,
Ben

 

[dannyboy]

I feel your pain. I had to troubleshoot a cruise control problem a couple years ago and it turned out to be the clockspring. I found that only one of the wires in the cable was cracked in a fold, preventing the cruise from working properly. The horn worked OK, though, so I would not rule out the clockspring in your case. Just get out your multimeter and check resistance across from one end to the other and be patient. It takes some work to access the thing.

 

[Ben123]

I'll have a look, if I can. The clockspring is also responsible for other important things (mainly airbags), maybe I'd be better off just buying one of Ebay or something of the sort.

Anyone else have ideas?

 

[Ben123]

Maybe I'm missing something?

 

[Majorlk]

Please educate me ... What is the clock spring?

 

[dannyboy]

The clockspring is the wire cable that carries the signals from the various stuff out there on the steering column such as the cruise control and air bag to the other end of the steering column. It has to be able to withstand the 3 or 4 complete revolutions of the steering wheel, end to end, that the driver is always making. To do that, they came up with a clever cabling device known as the clockspring. In my case there was a manufacturing defect in the cable, an extra fold, that eventually cracked one of the signal wires that led to the failure of the cruise control.

 

[Majorlk]

The clockspring is the wire cable that carries the signals from the various stuff out there on the steering column such as the cruise control and air bag to the other end of the steering column. It has to be able to withstand the 3 or 4 complete revolutions of the steering wheel, end to end, that the driver is always making. To do that, they came up with a clever cabling device known as the clockspring. In my case there was a manufacturing defect in the cable, an extra fold, that eventually cracked one of the signal wires that led to the failure of the cruise control.

Thank you! I appreciate the explanation. That was an absolutely new term for me.

 

[Ben123]

Hey guys, just a little update. Turns out, I fixed the problem originally (was the bad switch on the dash), I just wasn't setting it properly with the handle on the steering wheel (Blonde moment...).

Thanks for everything, I'm sure it won't be the last time I need help.