Cruise Control lever snapped off. Toyota Sienna.

dragonfry70

Has anyone had an issue with their Cruise Control lever snapping off? My Sienna is a 2006 which I purchased in January 2007. I have about 38,000 miles on it. I have been driving about 50 miles, mostly highway, round trip to work each day since October 2008 and rely on my cruise control a lot. The wires are still connected, just the plastic housing lever is broken where it connects inside the steering wheel. When I took it in to be repaired I was informed that it appeared to have been broken by force and this was not a common problem. I have had similar CC in the past with other cars and not had this problem. Since I know I have not misused the CC, I was wondering if anyone else has had this issue. What are the odds it is a defective unit?

ateixeira

First I've heard. Try some glue if you feel up to it, but it can't cost that much to replace.

equestrian47

I currently own 2 Toyota Corollas and have been a Toyota owner since 1985. My current vehicles are a 2003 and a 2005 Corolla. I have had to replace 3 cruise controls between the two cars. I live in a small town where I only use the cruise control when I take an out of town trip, which is infrequent. On the 2005 Corolla, I have about 71,000 miles and have just replaced the second cruise control (the first one was replaced at about 29000 miles). The issue is the plastic used for the lever on the steering column. In all three cases, it has broken in the same place. The plastic molded for this part is defective and probably cost less than a dollar for the plastic material for the mold. This has cost me about $600 to replace over the three times.

I feel that this is unacceptably high. With the background above, it is a part that received less than normal use due to not using it here in this small town and using it on the infrequent trips out of town. I have saved the last part from the dealer who uninstalled it and I could provide it for an engineering fault analysis. When I brought this to the attention of Toyota, they claimed it was not a common problem and so I am researching this on the internet now. The part cost $140 and labor was $90 this last time (January 31, 2013). Pretty expensive for about 35 cents worth of plastic.

ateixeira

Never heard of anything like that, but what about putting a "sleeve" to reinforce it?

equestrian47

I talked to my husband about this (also a professional engineer) and it would be very difficult to do. However, thanks for the suggestion--it is always good to think outside of the box.

ateixeira

We had a water main break at my previous address, they patched it with an enourmous sleeve. It was something else.

The end result was far stronger than the original pipe, which by the way was not fixed. The sleeve did all the work! Pretty neat.

doublesharp1

2009 Matrix (same as Corolla) Cruise lever broke without reason, Radio control knob too. Steering pops like there is no tomorrow. Looks like the Toyota quality went out the window on these cars. Oops, I almost forgot, they recalled the power window switch too.