Cruise Control Installation

[Ron F]

For Area 451--great product. Installed mine today and works great. Well worth the price considering all you guys went through during the R & D process. Could use about another 12 inches of cable between the switch cylinder and the connector on the other end. Short cable reduces cable routing options.

For SmartieParts--Thanks Steven. Great dealing with you. FAST delivery and great installation instructions. Thanks much.

For those who may be getting ready to do the installation. A couple suggestions:

--Open the rear hatch before disconnecting the battery.

--When you use the pin extracting tool (the heavy duty staple) be sure to lightly tug on the wire you are trying to remove. Should be intuitive but dummies like me thought the staple would push the wire out--not so.

--The instructions show the new switch cylinder on the wiper control arm assembly fitting flush against the shoulder of the wiper control arm shroud. Actually there is about a 1/4 inch gap between it and the shroud assembly shoulder.

--Don't put everything back together after you finish the installation--carpeting, panels, trim around steering wheel, etc. Take a test drive first. Mine worked great the first time but just in case yours doesn't you don't want to have to undo a lot of stuff.

It is so great to have cc.

[Smart Enuf]

Originally Posted by Ron F

The instructions show the new switch cylinder on the wiper control arm assembly fitting flush against the shoulder of the wiper control arm shroud. Actually there is about a 1/4 inch gap between it and the shroud assembly shoulder.

Ron, I totally agree with everything you said except this. If you push it in all the way correctly, the new switch cylinder should have no more of a gap than the headlight switch cylinder has on the other side of the steering wheel. It took some effort, but once I made sure the cylinder was lined up correctly, it went in all the way and was flush as shown in the pics. It feels like it won't go in all the way, but if you look inside the cylinder, you'll see that there are tabs that line up with notches on the arm assembly. Those tabs are probably what makes it feel like it won't go in any further, but I assure you that it does if it is line up correctly.

What I would caution folks installing this is to avoid holding the wiper arm assembly against your chest or some other hard surface to gain leverage when pushing the switch cylinder in. You run the risk of breaking the wiper arm this way. Instead, one should hold the wiper arm at the cylinder where it is supposed to match up with the new cruise control switch cylinder, then use your other hand to push the cylinder firmly until it goes on the wiper arm all the way. It can be a pain, but better to do it slowly and correctly than to break the wiper arm and have to replace it (assuming the dealer even has it).