Car with worst cruise control you had?

[Win]

My '75 Firebird. Cruise control was a short Louisville Slugger pressed between the seat and console and wedged against the go pedal. Also useful for self defense.

Cruise control works excellent on all our present cars, easily holding whatever speed is set. Lots of hills around here to make them work.

 

[rslifkin]

The Jeep cruise is great, for the most part. It holds speed pretty well (within about 1mph, even on steep hills) and isn't jumpy with the throttle. Controls are placed well, right on the front of the wheel within easy reach of your thumbs. It's not quite as nice on the 6 cylinder Grand Cherokees though, they don't have the power to pull big hills without dropping a gear, so it's not as smooth. In the V8 ones, I've never seen the cruise cause a downshift, it just rolls in some extra throttle and blasts right up the hills with no fuss.

 

[Joel_MD]

When I first started driving in the mid-'80s my dad owned a 1981 Buick Skylark with a carbureted 2.5L four cylinder engine that was woefully underpowered. I think it was rated at 92 hp, and with a 3-speed auto trans that car was dreadful. 0-60 was probably around 12 seconds on a good day. Anyway, the cruise control on that car was really bad. It could not hold a speed at all, but I would say it was mostly due to the wimpy engine.

When I went to college a few years later I drove a '79 Buick Estate Wagon, equipped with a 403 CID V-8 and a single-button cruise control. Something was broken on the cruise system. When you pushed the button on the stalk to engage the cruise, the accelerator pedal would immediately go all the way to the floor! The car would keep accelerating until you tapped the brake to disengage! My friends called it the "launch button" and everybody wanted to try it.

 

[DBMaster]

Originally Posted By: eljefino
Originally Posted By: DBMaster
It seems to be an option that has found its way into cars at just about all price points. As far as I'm concerned it's just another thing I have to keep functional for the eventual point of selling or trading in the car. I would have been just as happy if the car had not been equipped with it.


When you have drive-by-wire cruise is just a couple extra buttons and some programming. If it's left out, it's deliberate scrooge-iness on the part of the manufacturer to make a super-cheap shame-mobile.


That's an excellent point. I hadn't thought of that. On my 89 Honda there was a vacuum control unit under the hood along with extra cables. The 2012 Mazda 3 has nothing like that. VERY good point!

 

[OVERKILL]

Ergonomically the worst was the '86 Olds Custom Cruiser Wagon we had.

Functionally, the Forester, when it was getting the persistent CEL for misfire, would disable the cruise. And you had to clear the codes to get cruise back. And since the issue was extremely intermittent, losing cruise, even when the problem was NOT occuring, was royally annoying.

The ford and BMW wheel controls are both excellent. The stand-alone Mercedes-style stalk on the Charger has taken some getting used to.

 

[paulo57509]

I don't like the way Toyota and Lexus CC's operate.

1) When you drop down under 25MPH, you just can't hit resume when you get back up to highway speeds. You need to reset your cruise speed.

The CC in the '03 Safari is whacked at times.

1) Drive over some rough patches of highway (what highways aren't like that in CA??) and the cruise will at times disengage. It's not the brake pedal switch (which was replaced twice under warranty at the time). Hitting resume doesn't work. You need to reset the cruise speed; it's like the whole thing was shut off.

2) At times it won't set to any speed above 60MPH.

3) At times when you try to tap-up, it will disengage. Again, you need to reset the cruise speed; it's like the whole thing was shut off.

4) At times when you hit resume nothing happens.

This wasn't just and issue with the '03 Safari. The exact same thing would happen with my '98 Astro. Most Astro/Safari vans had this problem. I think this became an issue when GM ditched the vacuum servo and went to an electo-mechanical one.