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I've been having an issue with my 03 Civic Ex for over a year. I have taken this issue to the dealership and they say that there is nothing wrong with my cruise control and that they cannot recreate the problem.
My issue is that when cruising past 60mph and setting the cruise control the system will work fine initially for about 20 minutes and then suddenly decelerate, try to compensate and then stop working. This has happened to me numerous times in the freeway and it's becoming annoying that I can't use this feature on my civic and the dealership says they can't do anything to fix it if they can't find the problem.
I have looked in other sections of the forums and haven't found anything related to my 7th gen civic. Please help with any recommendations so i can try to isolate the problem.
All,
Sorry, Diehard, I don't understand your reply. I'm new to this stuff.
I seem to have the identical problem:
I have an 01 LX, manual transmission, 150K miles.
1. The car will suddenly start to decelerate, as if I had pushed the cancel or OFF button. My foot is not near the clutch or brake pedal. My hands are not near the steering wheel controls. IMPORTANT POINT: both the cruise control light by the driver’s left knee remains on. The cruise light on the dash temporarily remains on.
2. After about 2 seconds, the light on the dash goes out, indicating the cruise has turned off, as if I had hit the cancel light. I HAVE NOT TOUCHED ANY CONTROLS.
3. If I attempt to reset the Cruise by pressing the SET/decel or RESUME/accel button, nothing happens. The only way I can get the Cruise to work again is to toggle the power off / on by the button by the driver’s left knee.
4. Once this sequence of events has happened once, I re-power the Cruise, but after a period of time of sometimes less than a minute to sometimes several minutes, it will shut off again. The next day, the Cruise works fine (for a while)
I saw that Shepherd79 (Alex) mentions something about an AC Control Box. What is that - Air Conditioning? Shepher79 (Alex), can you provide more details.
I did not have any problems until after I had the service bulletin 02-083 performed. That was to fix the idle problem where the car would stall intermittently. Could this be related or only coincidence?
I'm willing to take it to a mechanic, but since this is intermittent, it is hard to track down and even know if it's been fixed.
Any help anyone can provide will be greatly appreciated.
I considered switches, but the strange behavior made me rule it out. If the switch had accidentally made contact, then the cruise control would have shut down AND the dash light would have gone out instantly. Instead, the dash light stays illuminated for several seconds after the deceleration starts. As a matter of fact, if I react quickly by sensing the deceleration and putting my foot on the gas to maintain speed, I have been able to keep the dash light on for over a minute. Then when I take my foot off the gas, the light goes out as the car decelerates.
This seems like a Software Bug, because of the peculiarity of this failure.
Again, thanks for the response, and I would certainly appreciate your's and anyone elses' opinions. I'm hoping you/others can find the flaw in my logic and help me find a solution.
I have an 03 Civic Hybrid with a manual transmission, and I am having the *exact* same problems with my cruise control as described by Gardener. Has a fix been discovered.
Thanks for any response, I realize this is an old post.
now if your cruise light stays on, but you start losing speed or it cannot hold a set speed more than a few seconds, you need to tighten the cruise control cable. i can try to post pics of what mine looks like after tightening in relation to the throttle lever. you do not want to tighten too much. the way i have mine now, engagement happens instantly and holds when you press the set button. before, there was a noticable delay and sometimes the speed would drop after setting.
The light on the main switch stays on, but the one on the instrument panel goes off. The cruise control seems to work on a straight rode for a few minutes, but as soon as it tries to accelerate up hill, the light goes off and the car de-accelerates. If I toggle the main switch, and then use the set button, cruise controls works again, but only for a minute or so.
I'd rather not get a $300 update unless I'm positive that's the problem.
I pulled the cover from what I think was the cruise control box, and checked the cable. It seems to be fine and not have any slack.
Also, I do have a bad O2 sensor that I haven't replaced yet. I read that *could* potentially cause cruise problems, but I'm sceptical.
did you try new brake light switch? they are only like $10 and worth a shot. very easy to replace behind the brake pedal. do you have a manual trans? the clutch pedal also cancels cruise when its pressed, or the computer thinks its being pressed. if you have an auto, shifting to N causes it to cancel, or if the computer thinks its in N.
oxygen sensor will affect the way the car runs, but no way tied to the cruise. it may have some hesitation when going from a stop, but not much difference once you are moving.
Gearbox I have not tried to replace the clutch or brake switch, but I guess its worth a shot. I'll get down and look at it this week when I get a free moment. Thanks for the replies!
cap737 or Gardener: Have you figured out the problem yet? My automatic 01 Civic has developed the same problem over the past week. Same symptoms: the light at my knee and the dashboard light stay lit and I can't get the cruise to re-engage without turning the switch off at my knee and back on again. Then it happens again within a few minutes.
I had the same problem with my 04 EX several months ago. It did this several times over a couple month period, then the problem went away
Since then I've moved on to other more pressing concerns like my leaking head gasket and worn out input shaft bearing. Hopefully this problem will not return as I have enough to deal with and no one here has a solid answer as to the cause.
I have a 2002 Civic EX automatic transmission, and am having the same problem as described:
Cruise Control Switch at Knee is on
Dash Cruise light is on
after ~20 minutes or so car begins to decelerate then accelerate then the cruise control light on the dash goes off and cruise control is canceled.
Its under the steering column left side behind the fuse access panel. An easy way to test is to hook up a continuity tester/mulitmeter and see if you have continuity at the module. Could simply be a bad ground connection.
If not, I don't know if anyone else mentioned it prior, but could be the Vehicle Speed Sensor.
I recently bought a 2003 Civic EX and didn't check the cruise control before I bought it, but soon found the problem. I've read all over about this problem and the symptoms described here match what I was experience. Rather than spend $130 on the cruise module, I tried squirting two small burst of WD-40 on the contacts. It worked! We'll see how long it lasts.
It might be a chip on your cruise control module overheating. The module is inside a black plastic case about the size of a cigarette case. it is mounted to the underside of the dash near your steering column. Remove the front bottom dash panel and look up for a box. It is mounted with one bolt. I think 8 or10mm. Remove the bolt then open up the black case holding the module. remove the circuit board from the case, this is your module. Next leave it connected and just hanging by your leg. Turn on your a/c and adjust your vent so a/c comes out dash and floor. Test drive your car with the cruise on. When and if your cruise kicks off by itself again then feel the module, in my case one of the chips, cpu's? was very warm. When it cooled off the cruise would work for a longer time than usual.
I fixed mine for less than $10.
1 I bought a 12v mini cooling computer fan - small 40mm x 10mm
2 I drilled a 1" hole in the black case that holds the module on the opposite side of the chip that was overheating
3 I drilled several 3/8" holes in the other side ofthe black case and also drilled holes in the edges
4 I mounted the fan on the case with 4 small screws i had in a junk drawer
5 I made the power wire 8" longer by splicing and ran that to a fuse that is off when the key is off and on when the key is on. I hooked the ground wire to the mounting bolt for the black case.
6 I put module back in case hooked up wires remounted black case and verified fan on when ignition on and off when ignition off.
This solved my problem. In the summer I keep my ac directed to center/floor position. I have driven 1 1/2 hours without my cruise kicking off. Hope this helps some others as I really missed not having cruise control.......well besides the 2 to 8 minutes I might get in the winter.
I had the exact same issue that OP had: cruise works for ~20 mins, stops briefly, tries to recover, and gives up. I checked all the ACC fuses and no good. This thread is the closest I could find to an answer, and here is what worked for me.
I replaced the Auto Cruise Controller (ACC) unit. The same one the guy mentions above with his homemade fix with the computer fan. I found one on eBay for $20 including shipping (new, they are still $250+). Popped it in in about 5 minutes and cruise worked perfectly. It's only been a day, but it hasn't quit on me yet.
Hi, I know I'm ten years late but I also know lots of people still drive these cars! I was having very similar symptoms in my 2002 EX, and the issue was the cruise control board overheating after "extended" use (30+ min). To solve this I cut holes on the sides and top of the module case (under the steering wheel) and hooked up a 40mm case fan to the power. Thus, when cruise is turned on the fan kicks on and keeps the module cool.
12-11-2007
Cruise Control Issues with 03 civic ex sedan 
