My friend has asked me to help out with her cruise control problem in her 97 Accord Wagon. Basically when she starts the car the cruise control will work perfectly until she hits the brake for the first time. At that point, the cruise will never re-engage until after the car is shut off for a little while (at say a rest area) and then re-started. The cruise light stays lit on the dash and everything looks normal there. Then the process repeats itself again after the restart....works fine until the first brake pedal touch. Anyone ever experience this? Any ideas?

I was thinking possibly a brake switch but why would it reset itself after a restart of the engine? Does this sound more like the cruise module? Before anyone points out the obvious, No she is not dragging her foot on the brake from the very first press for eternity...lol. We are passed the common sense things.

I forgot to mention that it's an automatic 4 cyl. No clutch switch to worry about. I just haven't read any other posts with these symtoms.

 

This is a pretty basic question, but do her brake lights work properly? or do they stay turned on after the brakes are applied?

 

I asked her to double check the brake lights last night so I'm waiting for her reply on that. I asked her to purposely make the cruise not work like it has been doing and then get out and see if the brake lights were on. I believe she said the brake lights were fine but I'll know for sure soon. I also asked her to try to pushing horn while she engages the cruise to see if it's a ground problem in the spool in the steering wheel. That still wouldn't make alot of sense to me though because cruise will work great for 3 hours straight if you never hit the brakes but as soon as the brake is touched for the first time, cruise is done until a restart.

 

Sorry to dredge up an old post, but the car was a 1000 miles away from me before and now I have it with me. At this time, the cruise control no longer engages at all. Brakes lights work fine. I checked the swicthes on the the steering wheel with a multimeter as well as the connector on the other side of the clock spring and there was continuity for all of those wires with no shorts. The cruise control button to the left of the steering wheel presses on and lights up normally but cruise never engages and you never see it light up near the speedo.

I tested to see if I had any voltage whatsoever at the four wire connector for the sctuator in the engine bay but I had nothing. I pulled the cruise control unit (computer) out of the car and opened it up to find no burns or any other visual problems on the motherboard. Obviously that doesn't mean there isn't a bad component. I quickly checked the caps on the board and the main transistor and they checked out OK.

It is really tough to trace any leads on this car because they disappear into huge wiring harnesses.

I've ordered a control unit to try that first. Anyone else had to go through this much trouble to get their cruise back working again?

 

Personally I'd be back at the switch, just to be sure.....is this an auto or manual trans?

There is a link in the Common DIY Threads to a manual you can download.

 

It an automatic. I appreciate the schematic...I hadn't seen that one yet...only the schematic for the dash switch. I had unplugged the brake switch entirely at one point to see if that would make any difference but it didn't. I wasn't sure if it was supposed to be normally open or closed circuit so I was just guessing until I had the schematic.
Thanks for that...I'll check back in and let you know how it's going.