Ive had my Camry since around September of last year. It had between 100-110k miles at the time of purchase.
In the last 3 months, Ive started to notice that sometimes when I am on the road & switch on the cruise control, the setting appears to have trouble engaging. On some occasions the cruise control does not even switch on at all when I hit the “set” button, while at other times I can feel the setting turn on and off intermittently, while I feel the engine respond accordingly with more or less gas with each time it goes on and off.
I can also see the cruise control light on my dashboard begin to flash on and off each time this happens.
Thankfully this does not happen every time I drive, but I must say Ive never seen anything like this before in any other car Ive ever had, and I find whats happening here to be both very strange as well as very annoying.
Thank you very much in advance, to anyone who can share some insight on whats going on here.
The first thing that I would check is the brake light switch, located above the brake pedal.
If this switch is no longer working properly and is “sticking in the on position” intermittently, that could explain the problem. When the brake lights are on, the cruise control will disconnect.
Some 1996 Camrys were recalled for defective cruise control systems. These tended to fail to hold the speed the driver intended, cutting in and out, and occasionally accelerating well beyond the speed the driver set.
I would check immediately to see if your car was included in this recall. If so, see if you can pull a fuse to disable the cruise control without disabling the car altogether (I don’t have a 96 wiring diagram, so I don’t know if this is possible). If not, don’t use the cruise at all until it is fixed…
Thank you very much - @VDCdriver I did check the brake light switch like you suggested, however I found nothing unusual there. @eraser1998 I will do some research to see if my car was indeed included in this recall you speak of. This may explain a whole lot and more.
On a '95 car this could be one of those items you just let go and live without cruise. Sometimes the costs of fixing this stuff on an old car can get out of hand. Check fuses, make sure that the brake lights aren’t blinking on and off on their own (switch adjustment), and other simple stuff. If that doesn’t end up in a fix, let it go and save your money for something essential, like a auto transmission fluid and filter change for instance.