Brake pedal makes clicking noise stops cruise control

Sounds like you need to get a capable scan tool and run a check on the whole vehicle It sounds like you're inverter pump may be acting up. Or possibly your clock spring is breaking communications and making these devices stop working those things need to be looked at if you put your steering wheel in a certain position does the stuff never stop working? This is a generation one and I don't know this particular model that well but the guys that do will be here directly

 

Are there any warning lights on? If the BRAKE or ABS light is on, you can get the trouble code(s) responsible without needing access to a scan tool, like this:

Blink (a/k/a Flash) Codes – How to. | PriusChat

It might also be useful to look for trouble codes from the cruise control, but that calls for a scan tool able to read all the codes from a gen 1 Prius.

 

Well if you sit in most Toyotas and you listen carefully usually when you push the brake pedal down just as you touch the brake pedal you should hear maybe a slight click That's the switch that puts the brake lights on in the back and does numerous other things in the Prius tells it when to go into ready mode and all of this and that so maybe there's a problem with that switch if you lean down there lay on the floor look up at the pedal and move the pedal with your hand while looking at the switch you see the little plunger come out I'm assuming your brake lights work You can usually see them in the garage against the door when you push the pedal? I mean in other models of Toyota the pedals are on a shaft and the bushing runs through them and the pedal swivel and move on that shaft I guess it could be possible never seen it personally that the shaft could wear on the pedal assembly and could possibly cause a clicking noise with the slop that that would leave. Never personally seen that I have taken apart a few pedal assemblies when changing from manual to automatic in TE27 Corollas very old cars. Usually the ABS light coming on indoor off The car is seeing something on O'Reilly's scanner may not be the thing maybe try the blink codes the Chapman's talking about and see if that gets you some kind of reasonable information and then someday it might be a good idea to get a scanner that's capable of reading this car not like the one at O'Reilly's there is a list here on this site that goes over scan tools connections etc I'm sure there's something that will work on this older generation one

 

If it comes on again, it will be helpful to get the trouble codes. Using the blink method (already linked in an earlier post) means you don't have to rely on some Autozone or O'Reilly scan tool that might not show the codes.

 

For scan tools, I've been using the Blue Driver for about 5 years and I really like it. It's a device that you can just leave on the OBD2 port and it connects via Bluetooth to your phone

 

There is a brake light switch up above the pedal. It looks like a pushbutton that gets pushed when you let the pedal up. I think its name is something surprising like"brake light switch."

When you press the pedal, the button gets unpushed and that turns on the brake lights and cancels cruise.

Everything I just said is what normally happens; it sounds like what you're describing has a bit more going on.

In my experience, the switch itself is silent. Between the switch and the brake lights there may be a "brake light relay", and possibly in your generation that could be an actual relay that clicks. It wouldn't be a loud click, just a typical faint one. What you're describing sounds like something else.

I have a gen 3, where even the "brake light relay" is electronic, not an old-fashioned relay, and doesn't make any sound. In a gen 3, the faint click you hear when lightly pressing the brake is a pair of valves in the brake actuator switching from the fail-safe to the operating position. They remain normally in the fail-safe position at all times when you're not braking, so that failing safe doesn't require anything to happen.

I don't know for sure if gen 2 also has that kind of click, but it might.

 

AutoZone has a cheap Chinese scanner not adequate to diagnose a toaster oven, and just as dangerous.

Check switch adjustment at top of pedal. Somebody likely rammed down on brake pedal so hard they bent the firewall moving the master further.

 

The pedal suck, loud click, pedal release business described by the OP reminds me of nothing I've seen here before, and seem like like they could be significant observations.

 

What Chap said. This needs to be fixed ASAP!
I'm curious why OP uses cruise control for most of his city driving. When you hit the brakes, it cancels cruise. Also, if car speed falls below 25 mph, or 10 mph below the pre-set speed, cruise will cancel out (2002 Owner's Manual, pp. 107-108). Seems like that would make city driving while maintaining cruise a real PITA. What's the benefit here that I'm not understanding?

 

There are some people that sit around in cars with funny-colored lights on the top and like to charge you money for driving 35 in a 34.

This may be more likely if 1) you drive a 22-year-old car in a neighborhood where most people have 2-year-old cars and/or 2) you, yourself, have elevated absorption characteristics in the 400 to 700 THz band. >_>

Cruise control helps avoid all of these things.

 

In my post (above), I should have pointed out that the cruise control behavior that OP describes in his '02 seems perfectly normal, as described in the Owner's Manual (and verified by my own driving experience). Using cruise to avoid getting a speeding ticket is another topic altogether. As for the "400 to 700 THz band", I used to play for money in a 27.5 to 4,186 Hz band (otherwise known as a symphony orchestra. We didn't deal in terahertz!)

IMO, the brake pedal behavior needs to be addressed pronto.

 

When EM waves are in the 400 to 700 THz range, many people can detect them just by looking. But some people are more reflective and others more absorptive of energy in that range, and it's been suggested that sometimes that difference correlates with what the funny-colored-lights cars do.

I do find my cruise control is more reliable at maintaining a given speed (perhaps especially a low in-town speed) than my unaided foot is.

 

Yes, they give out speeding tickets.

To each his/her/its/their/X's own. If it works for you, go for it.

 

Leg pull.