My daughter is a new driver. I feel cruise control is dangerous until she has a year or two experience. She will be driving our 2011 Prius. Is there any way to disable cruise control without causing other problems??? I have Techstream to access the various computers... Any advice appreciated.
does she know what cruise control is? How to turn it on? You can probably just remove the airbag and unplug the wire/control to the cruise
That would be fastest I think . Torx bit remove steer pad unplug . She mite not know how to set. My daughter's a new driver she's scared to death to touch the gas pedal let alone any buttons in the car and she's a computer repair person and a stereo freak and she won't even put the radio on while learning to drive I seriously doubt she'll touch the cruise
Just tell her? Or better yet don't; the more you draw attention to something? Then she'll more'n likely find it when she's a bit more comfortable with the car anyway.
While that is a fast way, remember not to do anything involving an airbag without first disconnecting the 12 volt battery and waiting 90 seconds or more for the airbag system to be depowered. And when you have that pad removed, be sure wherever you set it down, it is metal part down, bag part up. After reassembling and reconnecting the battery, various things like clock, radio presets, and power windows will need resetting.
In the overall scheme of things, I would be more concerned about messing up the airbag than the possibility that she would make unauthorized use of the cruise control.
Maybe simpler, unplug the electrical connector from the brake pedal switch, back the red-wire terminal out of the connector, plug it back in. Won't be able to set cruise then. Might produce a trouble code though. When ready, just reinsert the terminal and reconnect. Be sure to follow the Wire Harness Repair Manual for the right way to back out and reinsert terminals in that plug. Toyota Service Information and Where To Find It | PriusChat
I would not do anything that modifies the car. First, tell her she should not use it until she has more experience. Driving with friends, I think, has been proven to be very dangerous. What are you going to do -- fill all the other seats with spiked nails like they do to keep birds away? You could also take her out on a low traffic area and show her how to engage it and disengage it via controls and the brake so she knows what it does and does not do so if she does use it she has mastery of it rather than is timid about it. Mike
I agree with the other commenters: cruise control is a part of modern driving, and learning how and when to use it, for safety, convenience, and fuel economy, is an important part of learning to drive. Consider, too, that your daughter might drive another vehicle; at the very least, she should know that cruise control exists and have practiced disengaging it by applying the brake and by using the switch. I don’t recommend this (or any other) modification, but to answer the question asked: assuming the car has only constant-speed cruise control, not dynamic radar cruise control, you could disable it by disconnecting the red wire at connector L6, terminal 22 (CCS), at the power management control ECU. This wire goes to the cruise control main switch via the spiral cable sub-assembly. An open at L6-22 is equivalent to the default, released position of the switch, so disconnecting it wouldn’t cause any diagnostic trouble codes to be set. This method also doesn’t require disturbing any airbags or interfere with other control functions that rely on the stop light switch assembly. See the Electrical Wiring Diagram (more info) and the Repair Manual topic “Cruise Control Switch Circuit” for details, and as @ChapmanF kindly suggested, see the Wire Harness Repair Manual for hints on handling connectors and terminals.
Like I said I have a computer literate daughter who works in the electronics repair industry she's one of these My chemical romance cosplay gamer types. When she drives she is so tied up in the moment of driving that pushing a button turning on the stereo opening the sunroof or any of that is out of the question in her mind because 1,000% of her brain activity would not be applied to driving. And her brain I don't think can accept that everything she does is this way. But then all people are not like this If I send my daughter out in the car which I can't yet because she won't get a driver's license. But if I would send her out in the car it would probably hardly get driven she would go to where she's going and park and spend hours there agonizing over having to getting back in the car. To me I think she would rather have a flight suit and a jetpack even though that would likely kill her quicker. Kids are just too funny. Especially today many have never seen the outside world except to ride on a school bus and come back home to go to their room.
Yes, she knows what it is and said she will not use it... what I am afraid of is that someone sitting in the passenger seat will activate it... The 2011 Prius does not have dynamic radar cruise so if it is active and someone slows/stops in front of her and it is active, it could cause major problems. Kids make stupid decisions without thinking unfortunately. Am going to look into that red wire and see how hard it is to disconnect... I have the wiring diagrams, etc. Was hoping there was a way to do it via software (Techstream), but apparently not. Thanks for all the replies...
So you so you're thinking somebody would set the cruise control without her knowing it to just fool with her everybody's got to make some better friend choices or something wow that's wild I hope that's not what it is
Teach her how to properly operate a motor vehicle and all of it's functions is by far the safest way! I make sure my son understand all of the function of his Prius before he had his driver's license, it's the safest way in my opinion.... But it's just my opinion.. Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.
No offense, but I think you need to "let go". Don't sell kids short; they will make mistakes, but you can't prevent them with measures like this; it'll backfire as likely as not.
If that happens and she steps on the brake pedal appropriately, cruise will be cancelled automatically, without her having to think about it. If she isn't able to find the brake quickly in an emergency, that's a separate, more serious issue. My sister had an accident that way (or made it worse) when she was an inexperienced driver long ago---in my car, while I was in the back seat.