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Cruise control light flashing???

346K views 57 replies 27 participants last post by  cardoc 
#1 · (Edited by Moderator)
Hey guys!!

I am a new owner of an Outback 06 and lately, I am having trouble with my cruise control... I had it on when I was driving on a dry road (60mph) and all of a sudden the cruise control stopped working and the cruise light and the check engine came on.... And the cruise light started to flash. It's been doing that since it last occurred...

Did it happen to any of you guys??

Is it a sensor or a breaker??

Thanks for the help!!
 
#3 ·
The cruise will blink telling you it's disabled when the car senses a problem. Generally you will have a CEL along with it but, if it's a pending code, I've heard that sometimes only the Cruise will blink.

Did you goof around and do burnouts in the dirt ? I know it can happen from excessive spinning of the wheels [the TCU will get confused and set a pending code, also the cruise will blink]

Other issues could be, Knock sensor code from some bad gas, "gas cap code" [forget the number] from a loose gas cap and others but, lets start there.
 
#5 ·
You need to get the CEL code read (PXXX) and bring that code back here. The CEL is preventing your Cruise from working and the Cruise light is flashing to tell you it can't work.

You may be able to disconnect your positive battery cable for 10 mins and step on the brake pedal for a minute to reset the ECU. That may put the CEL out and allow your cruise to work. If the CEL comes back on after you do that, you will need to get the code read.
 
#7 ·
JF, our '05 set-off the CEL and blinking cruise light twice following a loss of power which brought the vehicle down to 10 - 15 kph. Both times it coded a faulty accelerator assembly. This (ghostwalking) car is now on its 3rd accelerator assembly. Hopefully your warning light faults are relatively harmless.
 
#8 ·
the exact same thing happened to me last night at 2 a.m.. i was driving on the interstate, came upon a horrible storm, then stopped for a while. the rain let up a bit, but the check engine light came on and the cruise flashed. i had to keep on driving to get home, and it's the same this morning. i checked the gas cap and will try the battery disconnect/brake peddle trick. thanks miker104!

so, i could take my car to advance auto parts and they scan for free? they do that?
 
#9 ·
I took delivery of a 2004 3.0 Outback on the 27th May, and the lights came on less than 100 yards from the dealer...they have had the car ever since, finally traced it to a faulty TCU and a whole host of other faults...so they contacted me yesterday, they are cancelling the deal and giving me an 06 2.5 OB A/T at cost price...still with maintenance contract...only 46000 km on the clock, so it looks as if I got a sweet deal! ;D

@marcc - Don't you have a dealer you can take it to? They usually check and re-set the thing in about 10 minutes...99% of the time it is your cat that is at fault.
 
#11 ·
You got a great deal! The 3.0 is not as good as the 2.5 in my opinion.

The dealers usually charge for reading codes, unless you tell them to also make the repairs. I prefer to knowing what the code is before entering a dealership, just in case I can do the repair myself.
 
#12 · (Edited)
@paulO, i bought it form a dealer, but it's an '05, so out of warranty.

"You may be able to disconnect your positive battery cable for 10 mins and step on the brake pedal for a minute to reset the ECU.

i've disconnected the + cable, do i press the brake during or after the cable is off? or does it matter?

side note: just before the rainstorm, i noticed the parking lights didn't come on nor the fog lights. is this related? last week, i had to replace the low beam bulb (i did both even tho one was out). did mess something up doing that?
 
#13 ·
Marc,
Pushing on the brake pedal with the battery disconnected ensures a complete ground to the electronics.
But, now you don't know what code was stored and what the error might have been. Plus, you ruined the computer's drive cycle and if you are in a state that checks your car for emmision controls, it will fail the check until the drive cycle is complete.

As for the lights, you probably did not home the plugs enough.
 
#14 ·
i pressed the brake after re-connecting the battery. the engine turned over for a few seconds and started up. no check light or flashing cruise light!

klausc, good point on not knowing the code. i live in south carolina, and they don't check for emissions here (we do lots of other crazy stuff, however)

my fog lights now work, don't know why. (it was operator error on the parking lights i think: last night i flipped the switch on the steering column, but didn't move the light switch on the stalk to the correct setting).

thanks for everyone's help.
 
#15 ·
Thanks klausc - the 3.0 litre was certainly very impressive to drive, but I am already totally sold on the 2.5 so will not miss all that extra power at all, plus there's the added bonus of much better fuel consumption!
 
#16 ·
reviving the thread...

I'd like to report that I had my Cruise control light blinking (but NOT the CEL) while going off road on a very messy snowy road (12 inch deep). I was in second gear and pushing a bit to keep my momentum. RPM was around 3000-5000 and turbo spooling. Everything was running fine though. My guess is AWD or CC started to get confused with all the wheels spinning in an unusual way. What do you guys think?
 
#17 ·
My guess is AWD or CC started to get confused with all the wheels spinning in an unusual way.
Sounds possible. There probably were inconsistent signals coming from the ABS sensors, so the ECM disabled the Cruise to prevent it from being activated. Perhaps the unusual signals didn't last long enough to activate any other warning lights. Nevertheless, this is the first time I've read about the Cruise starting to flash. We've had posts about one front and one rear wheel spinning (fully possible) without any indication of the CC light coming on.
 
#18 ·
interesting..I forgot to mention that after that, I turned off the car, went on our planned hike in the deep snow with my wife, came back, turned on the car and all was well. Nothing flashing, nothing weird. First time ever this happened but I have to say I was gunning it through the snow packed road to keep my momentum (gunning but overall speed limit was just maybe 20 mph cause it was REAL bumpy and only drove like that for like 30 seconds). So I know for sure it was spinning like crazy. But again, NO CEL light.
 
#20 ·
Guys,

I wonder what would cause the blinking cruise control light to go off and on and also CEL turn on. This morning driving home I was using the cruise control going on the highway at the speed limit which is 70. After 10 minutes of driving I noticed the lights blinking. I followed your instructions disconnected the positive cable for 10 minutes and pressed on the brakes for a minute. The blinking lights went away.

Curious to know what caused the lights to blink. Totally weird.

Thank you
NRHTX
 
#24 ·
Man as I was backing out of my garage. My car was acting up. I pulled out of the garage and noticed that the engine was not performing normal. I turn around and the car turned off on me. Tomorrow at 0630am a tow truck will pickup my OB and straight to the dealer. I wonder if it has something to do with the catalyc converter. I am so happy I purchased extended warranty.
 
#25 ·
My check engine light just came on along with a flashing cruise control light, its done this before and both turned off after about a day, so I'm thinking this will just turn off too but I will go to autozone in the morning and have them get the code if its still on by then.
 
#26 ·
Hi Mark,

This happened to me twice. Finally I took it to the dealer and they discovered that 1 of the cat converters was bad. I was so happy that I was still within warranty on my 2008 OB LL Bean Edition. It was my rear converter. The problem went away, its been 2 months
 
#27 ·
CEL and Cruise Control Flashing

Hey everyone. I looked around for any topics about a CEL/Cruise Control Light flashing. It actually happened to me this afternoon. A friend of mine has an OBII scanner and I found out the code it is showing is for "catalytic efficiency below range". Would that have anything to do with why the CC light wod now be flashing? It all started at the same time.
 
#30 ·
Hey everyone. I looked around for any topics about a CEL/Cruise Control Light flashing. It actually happened to me this afternoon. A friend of mine has an OBII scanner and I found out the code it is showing is for "catalytic efficiency below range". Would that have anything to do with why the CC light wod now be flashing? It all started at the same time.
All I can tell you it was one of my Cat's that was bad, as soon as they changed it the blinking lights went away. I ask the tech did you change the other cat and he said no because it was still working. I was so glad my cat was still under warranty and the cat was replaced at no cost. It would of also been nice if they replaced the other one.

It would of been nice if Subaru had a light indicating your cat is going bad, but at list when you see the Cruise control lights blinking it's probably time to check your Cat's
 
#28 ·
CEL/CC FLASH..... Rough idle?

I have also noticed that within the last 2-3 weeks my OB has started to idle very rough when I am stopped at a red light. It only idles rough when I am in drive. If I out it into park it smoothed out and runs fine. I'm assuming that too could be related back to the catalytic converter?
 
#29 ·
Whenever the check engine light (MIL) is on, the cruise control is automatically disabled. That's why the cruise control light is flashing -- to tell you that it won't work.

Find out what the trouble code was rather than the description. It should be in the form of P#### ("P" followed by four numbers). Then do a search here for that code, or post it and others will help with it. If it's a P0420, there's lots of posts -- it's a very common code -- and there's a few good threads about it. For example, see: http://www.subaruoutback.org/forums...ce/49537-p0420-diag.html?highlight=P0420+Diag
 
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