A friend has bought a Vauxhall Antarra without cruise control but found out that most cars now have it pre installed but just needs to be connected. He purchased a new indicator stalk with cruise control switch fitted and installed it himself thus enabling cruise control.
Hi Northy. I too had a friend who retrospectively fitted cruise to his VW Passat without going through a dealer, just an indicator stalk and a bit of wire. Slightly more tricky than that but you know what i mean. Although the Bmax has the cruise within the steering wheel, I figure if it can be done it will be more tricky than doing the indicator stalk. The Air bag and stereo controls all runthrough the squib behind the steering wheel. Unless you can find someone who knows for sure this can or can't be done, I would look behind the wheel first to see if the wires are actually in place before proceding any further.
During my negotiation with the dealer, he offered one car without cruise control (at a discount price), so I asked about the posibility of later instalation. It turns out to be possible, but new steering wheel must be ordered, dont remember exact price, but it was a lot of ££££.
When I mentioned that it was a show-stopper for me, he digged deeper into inventory, and voila - B-Max with cruise control available in stock
Hi, I had a Kia Sedona that did not have cruise. There are firms who retro fit them to any car. Cost about £350 for the Sedona. It looked like it was original to the car.
Should't be a showstopper in the UK as the traffic is to heavy to use it most of the tine unless you like driving on motorways at 2 oclock in the morning.
Fo me it has some uses as i can pull intoo the nearside lane and switch to 50 or 60 when my right leg cramps.
I tend to agree. My last three cars all had cruise and the use of it is limited as you say. On Sunday Morning I drove from mid Wales to the West Midlands and almostevery time I activated cruise I ended up canceling it within a very short time. If I didn't have cruise, I wouldn't miss it, but in some cases it depends where you live.It will mean a new steering with thecruise switches and rotary coupler connections. Not cheap.
I use the cruise control mainly passing through sections of road with average speed cameras. A better option which Ford don't seem to offer is a speed limiter. Like the cruise control it stops you going too fast but allows you full control apart from that.
There is so called "My key" option that can define speed limiter linked to particular key, so you can borrow the car to your kid with limited speed (disclaimer - I never bother to try it myself
The other point is about "full control" - even if cruise control is ON, you can still accelerate past that speed, it will just slow down to the set speed when you remove your foot from the accelerator. And you can allways brake, that wil cancel the cruise control.
But since it is just and old fashioned fixed speed controler, usualy the traffic is too heavy for comfortable use, and I don't use it so much I thought I would.
There is so called "My key" option that can define speed limiter linked to particular key, so you can borrow the car to your kid with limited speed (disclaimer - I never bother to try it myself
As I understand it, mykey is pretty useless in that it only sounds a warning when a set speed is exceeded.
If i let the kids borrow the car, i want it to set a limit that cannot be exceeded.
Ive also measured the speedometer with 2 different gps devices and found it to under read by around 10%, so i can exceed average speed limits a little with no proobs.
In the uk, the police allow 10% plus 2 mph meaning i can drive at 77 on tbe speedo plus 9 mph which equals 84 mph approx. I drive at 80 on the spédo usually.Edited by: cianpars
Looking at the rear of a steering wheel with cruise control on eBay, and it appears to have a single connector plug coming out of it. I wonder if a wheel without cruise control has the same connector but with connections missing.... I really would love to find out if it would work, but I don't want to spend just shy of £100 to find out that it doesn't work!
Mykey is not going to work for this. The simple reality is that on a trip to South Wales I went through multiple sets of average speed cameras with limits varying from 40 to 70 mph. My brothers Vauxhall as a speed limiter that you can just set on the fly as you do for cruise control.
I found the sollution which is really easy.thats what i did in my bmax.. i bought a fiesta used stering wheel with cruise control buttons which cost 130 euros ,i went to a ford mechanic which they installed it and reprogrammed the ecu 40 euros.. and voila!! With 170 euros job is done ..
I know that this is an old thread, but I have now done this procedure myself. I purchased a replacement steering wheel (actually from a Fiesta, which means that the LEDs behine the controls are red instead of blue). I removed the trim with the buttons from this replacement wheel and swapped them out with the original. I then enabled Cruise Control using the free FORScan software and an ELM327 ODBII device (USB).
The most difficult part was removing the airbag unit from the steering wheel.
I was under the impression that this was a feature of all cars today. Wrongly it would seem (?)
I use mine a lot, usually to keep within speed limits, when it is safe to do so of course.
Hei! Roybridge. i opened the steerin wheel trim of my B-max 2013 but didnt find any cables for the Cruise control. So its probably waiste of money to buy same kind of Fiesta steering wheel with Cruise control switch. I need some help with this...
I am looking to get the cruise control on my bmax was it a simple as your post described
Cheers Neale
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