I have a 2005 Toyota Matrix AWD, automatic. I’d like to have cruise control installed, but the dealership or independent mechanic won’t do it.
Does anybody have any experience with after market cruise control? Is it worth pursuing or are there problems associated with it?
Any experiences or opinions are appreciated.
The reason they won’t do it is it doesn’t work like it did 20 years ago when cars actually had throttles and throttle cables on them.
Truthfully, I’ve not had to work on one since we went to fuel injection and electronic throttles instead of cable throttles. Someone may correct me on it, but I’d think that on many of the vehicles now it’s a sub routine in the computer that controls it rather than the old vaccume controls.
Skipper
I recently installed an Audiovox unit in my '99 Dakota. It works like a charm, although it doesn’t have a “Cancel” button like OEM unit do.
That being said, as Skipper wrote, installation might be difficult or impossible if your Matrix has a “drive by wire” throttle instead of a traditional throttle cable. It probably DOES have a throttle cable, though.
I did install one myself some 20 years ago and it worked beautifully. Keep asking around, there may be a speed shop in your area that installs devices a lot weirder than simple cruise control.
Add-ons used to be far more prevalent than they are today and I’ve installed more than I can remember. The aftermarkets work fine. You might contact this company about a CC unit; they appear to have a unit available for your vehicle.
http://www.rostra.com/technical.htm
As to the dealer or ind. shop not wanting to install it I have no answer for that. It’s a sue-happy country so that is the reason why they won’t do it.
Most CC units are not that hard to install and the instructions are usually pretty clear. Know any mechanically minded people who would not mind coming over a Saturday afternoon and helping out for a few bucks?
It is very possible that your car has computer control of the speed and the old design after market cruse controls will not work with it. It may not be possible to add on cruse to many of these new cars.
this is an after market unit that I was considering. http://www.thecruisecontrolstore.com/cgi-bin/ez-catalog/cat_display.cgi?account=X380183;search=matrixat0506;search=Toyota%20Matrix%20’05-'08%20(auto);limit=product;v=2.0;path=0003;layout=layout_custom.xsl