[JFernald]

I must have missed something in the owners' manual, even though I went through it again.

As I was passing a car in the rain on Friday, the car lost lost power, a dashboard light flashed and the cruise control shut off. Now by shut off, I don't mean cancelled. I mean it was gone. While the car completely recovered its power quickly, the cruise control button would not reactivate it. I pulled over to the side of the road, put it in park and waited a few seconds, still nothing. When I stopped for gas, and shut it completely down for several minutes, it was back.

Does anyone know why this happened and how I can prevent it? Is it related to traction control, or hydroplaning?

 

[TomM]

Yeah, that's part of the safety circuitry of cruise controls. If a wheel loses traction it shuts down rather than trying to maintain speed and possibly causing the vehicle to spin out. All of them behave that way that I know of. Shutting off the car and restarting resets it. So it's normal behavior.

 

[Chipshot]

Um, doesn't the owner's manual advise against using cruise control on wet/slippery roads?

 

[Chipshot]

I'll answer my own question; see page 158 of the owner's manual.

 

[JFernald]

Um, doesn't the owner's manual advise against using cruise control on wet/slippery roads?

Thanks for the information and the reference to the manual.

When you are doing a 700 mile trip in one day, the cruise control is essential. It was raining but not slippery on my side of the highway. When I crossed over to pass, and accelerated, was when I must have hit a puddle.

I suppose it would be wise to cancel the cruise control before passing.

 

[Chipshot]

Thanks for the information and the reference to the manual.

When you are doing a 700 mile trip in one day, the cruise control is essential. It was raining but not slippery on my side of the highway. When I crossed over to pass, and accelerated, was when I must have hit a puddle.

I suppose it would be wise to cancel the cruise control before passing.

Call me less ambitious. I drove a 700-mile round-trip this past weekend. Sadly, not in a Spider, but in a car with adaptive cruise control (something I wish the Spider had). Open road passes were no problem in the wet or dry, so long as there weren't water-filled ruts in the highway (too common with the US's worn infrastructure). For passes in traffic (sadly, no shortage of that), I often canceled cruise, hitting the resume button once completed. We're not quite to autonomy, and that doesn't bother me.

 

[Stewie]

Call me less ambitious. I drove a 700-mile round-trip this past weekend. Sadly, not in a Spider, but in a car with adaptive cruise control (something I wish the Spider had). Open road passes were no problem in the wet or dry, so long as there weren't water-filled ruts in the highway (too common with the US's worn infrastructure). For passes in traffic (sadly, no shortage of that), I often canceled cruise, hitting the resume button once completed. We're not quite to autonomy, and that doesn't bother me.

So once you've cancelled it prior to it shutting itself off, everything is good to go and you can turn it back on no problemo after. That seems reasonable.

 

[zvezdah1]

I had no idea, thanks for the info!

Yeah, that's part of the safety circuitry of cruise controls. If a wheel loses traction it shuts down rather than trying to maintain speed and possibly causing the vehicle to spin out. All of them behave that way that I know of. Shutting off the car and restarting resets it. So it's normal behavior.

 

[JFernald]

Yeah, that's part of the safety circuitry of cruise controls. If a wheel loses traction it shuts down rather than trying to maintain speed and possibly causing the vehicle to spin out. All of them behave that way that I know of. Shutting off the car and restarting resets it. So it's normal behavior.

After further research, I have determined that I am not losing my mental faculties. The manual does not say anything about the cruise control shutting off and having to be reset by a full shutdown and restart. Not in the speed control section, not in the traction control section, not in the DCS section, not in the ABS section.

 

[TomM]

It may not be in the manual, but as far as I know it's a part of how all cruise controls work. If it detects a sudden speed change (like from a wheel losing traction and spinning), it shuts down to be safe.

Here's a reference I found from a Subaru technical guy: