Dear all LS 430 owners,

My 2002 LS hardly ever gives me surprises. Yesterday morning, as I turned on the cruise control as usual, the green light that reads "cruise" lighted up but the cruise control did not engage. I have restarted the car several times but the same happened. When I started up the car again in the evening, the cruise light did not even light up.

My car is a base model which does not have the fancy adaptive cruise control (I believe this function is not available until 2004?). Turn signals and windshield wipers work properly which should rule out the steering wheel circuit. Brakes work perfectly and brake fluid flushing was performed in October last year. All brake lights also work as expected. No check engine light (In fact, I have never seen one since ownership) or red triangle alert.

I hope this can be solved by sensor re-calibration at the dealer. I am not in the mood to invest in thousands only to replace the sensor.... Wife told me not to bother bringing to the dealer to pay a diagnostic fee. She said "simply put your lazy foot on the pedal" lol lol

Any thoughts are appreciated!

Thomas

 

Here's what the repair manual says...

 

I have an 04 UL with adaptive laser cruise control and it will occasionally drop out while driving for no apparent reason. It will not reset while driving. The car has to be stopped, turned off, and restarted before it becomes functional again. rkw 77080 do you have a similar Problems Symptoms Table for my car that you could share? That would be appreciated. Thanks.

 

Longshot, but the brake light switch could be low hanging fruit. It likely needs a thorough diagnostic though.

 

I believe that is the case with GM cars specifically my wife's. It was the reason I needed to buy a reader that did ABS/SRS.

Other cars, such as BMW, ABS being disabled means no cruise. Don't believe that was the case with my Nissan, drove for quite a while with ABS lit, cruise worked. Seems different makes vary....also interesting, because I removed the BMW ABS pump altogether and stupidly turned on the ignition without starting, the car threw about 35 codes and the windshield wipers went on full and could not be slowed nor stopped (imagine they designed that into the logic)

 

Thanks all for the reply. Here is an update.

I brought the car to the dealer this morning and agreed to pay $170 diagnostic fee. An hour later, my service advisor referred me to a "specialist". The specialist said he would need another 2 or 3 hours to find out what the problem is.

Wife was not happy (that would translate to $170 x 3 for diagnosis only), hence I took the car back. Currently at an independent mechanic shop (found from yelp where the mechanics used to work in Lexus dealers), quoted $650 for replacing the spiral cable. I think I will give a shot.

Wish me luck, mate!

 

Good luck, but should you get your $170 back? It doesn't always work but I have told car service places you don't want my wife coming down here upset. If they call my bluff, it's one of those where they're pretty sorry that they did because she comes down to get the money back (they start out with the construction worker mentality but generally end up sorry they pulled it). She's a banker so she worked in a cut throat industry before having our son.

 

 

Thank you.

 

My 04 Laser cruise has started to not recognize the vehicle in front of me. So the little car symbol would come and go. And if I just let it go, I do believe it would try to kill me by just running into the vehicle in front of me. Never did this before, in fact it would seem to pick up a vehicle more then a block away (well close to it). .

And I don't think this has to do with my air suspension. Car is stock.

I'll clean it and get back to you.

 

My 2004 UL does the exact same thing.

 

My Custom Luxury cruise control mal-functions as follows
if you engage while moving I get red triangle cruise not available
if you engage while stopped and bypass laser to normal then cruise works as a normal cruise would
dealer suggests replacing laser sensor for $1700 but warns that calibration of sensor will take 8 hours
I have cleaned the sensor and see no visable damage and dealer is willing to try recalibration of the sensor but doubts that will be successful
is easy to just use normal cruise, but you have to remember to turn it on before you get going, or you have to stop, turn off car and start again.
so my ? is... is laser cruise worth pursuing. never had it so...