DIY Cruise Control for 2012 Yaris - Good News!

[mikeybee]

Almost two years after CTScott sent me the cruise control kit (thanks!) I have finally installed it... and now have CRUISE CONTROL and a SPEED LIMITER!

I wanted not just cruise control, but the speed limiter too (which I have had on my two previous vehicles). A speed limiter is far more useful in the UK - a crowded country with many speed cameras - rather than cruise control itself, which needs wide open highways like the US. :-)

For this, I needed a replacement switch pad on the right hand side of the steering wheel front, with an extra button replacing the blank under the call pick up/drop buttons. Sourcing this turned out to be a pain in the neck, with various Toyota dealerships either not wanting to help me ("why do you want that?") or being too incompetent to find the right part (despite CTScott providing a suggestion of the part number).

In the end I sourced the required item by buying a second hand steering wheel off ebay from a breakers. Here it is:



and here is the cabling:



I think it's just the green wire that is extra?

My Yaris (UK RHD 2012 model TR 1.33 manual) has done 60,000 miles so I was also thinking about replacing the entire steering wheel, as the ebay one was less shiny from use.

So, after reading this thread carefully, I set to... disconnecting the battery negative first.

First challenge - removing the airbag. I turned the steering wheel upside down to make this easier. The bottom clip comes out easily using a flat bladed screwdriver, getting the other two sides out seemed to involve just wiggling the airbag unit down (so towards the top of the steering wheel, given the steering wheel is upside down), and it popped out.

At this point I decided I was less keen on replacing the whole steering wheel (I don't have a steering wheel puller) and decided to replace just the silver button pad unit. This unscrews with the two screws you can see , and then unclips, although I did break one clip on both the old and new units. This doesn't appear to matter though.

To install the wiring for the new button pads requires disconnecting the airbag as the other wiring goes around it - pull up the yellow tab and then pull out the connector on the airbag.

Fit the new silver section, reconnect the airbag, install the cruise stalk and panel cover. Refit the airbag (two slots at the bottom first, then the one at the top. Help it in by having the flatbladed screwdriver push the clip out of the way)

My Yaris already had the clutch switch installed, so nothing to do down there once I figured out it was already there!

Reconnect the battery, go for a drive.

Cruise control works as you would expect... on, set, up, down, press clutch and it goes off.

Speed limiter works like this:

1. button on the steering wheel pad to turn it on
2. set speed with down on the cruise stalk. The following display appears!



3. you now cannot exceed the speed indicated, the car cuts the throttle. You can adjust the speed limiter by using up and down on the cruise stalk. Changing gear (or engaging the clutch) does not turn off the speed limiter. If you adjust the speed limit down so you are now exceeding the limit set, the display flashes and power is cut until you are under the speed limit set again.

This is awesome. No more speeding fines.

Apparently the speed limiter feature is built into all European Yarises that could have cruise control. Not sure about the US? Check the cabling and try it?!

And thanks again to CTScott for the original kit!

Mikeybee