Anyone experience any Cruise Control Problems with their F-150's or other F-series trucks yet? A couple weeks ago I had an incident with my '06 F-150 SuperCab. I was coming up on one of those stupid camera enforced stop lights and as I was stopping for the red light, my thumb accidentially hit the cruise control button on the steering wheel. All of the sudden the cruise control came on with my foot already on the brake pedal. It wasn't long when I was smoking the rear tires while trying to get this thing to shut off and simultaniously trying to stop completely at the red light so I would not get a traffic ticket in the mail. This was really freaking me out. When I hit the off button on the steering wheel the cruise control finally shut off and I managed to get the truck stopped, although I did go a little past the white stripe on the pavement at the light. Yesterday, I took my truck to the dealership for an oil change and I proceeded to tell them about this incident I had experienced with the cruise control and they said it was a computer problem and that they would fix it under warranty. They said the cruise control should never come on when the brake pedal is engaged. I thought okay. About 30 minutes later the Service Advisor comes up to me in the showroom while I was drooling all over a brand new metallic blue Shelby GT-500 Mustang and he says to me they found a problem with my truck that needs immediate attension. I go out to the service department where my truck is sitting up high on the rack and they show me what they had found. Both rear brakes and rotors on my truck were totally trashed. The pads were nothing more than metal on metal and the rotors had so many variances in their thickness when checked with a digital caliper that they were way out of specs and completely shot. Turning them on a lathe was no option. I did not recall hearing any sqeeling indications or anything to tell me I had a problem back there. I figured this must have happened when the cruise control came on that day. I explained this to the Service Advisor, but he told me the brakes and rotors were not covered by the factory warranty so I had to purchase brand new brake pads and new rotors for the rear axle. Needless to say I was not too happy. Overall, it cost me a little over $660.00, which included the oil change & filter, new air filter, new fuel filter and wiper inserts, which all were in need of replacement. At least thankfully, I did not get a red light ticket in the mail for doing a smokey burnout at the light or even worse rear end someone. Anyone experience anything like this?

 

are you sure it wasn't your foot on the gas and brake? when these trucks first came out, alot of people were doing that. they were hitting the gas pedal while stopping.

1 guy even tried to blame his brakes for a wild jaunt through a parking lot and several parked vehicles...ended up being he had fat feet...not a brake problem.

CC cannot engage under 30 mph in these truck (1 failsafe) and neither can it if the Brakes are on (another failsafe).
a temporary brake-stand did not do that damage.

most likely you have been driving on the wear indicators for a long time and that is the culprit. a brake stand is harmful, but it would take much more than what you are describing.

I've got a few vids on Youtube of me deliberately doing brakestands and my rear pads/rotors look fine.

 

Exactly what I thought when reading the OP

3 fail safes...too slow to engage, brake switch engaged, deactivation switch disengaged.

 

I'd have done the oil change and brakes myself and saved $500

 

No guys. Foot was only on the brake pedal itself because that was the first thing I checked when it happened. I looked down and saw my foot was not even touching the gas pedal when the cruise control came on. It certainly came on under 30 mph and would not shut off with the brake pedal engaged. The Service Advisor said they had determined that it was caused by a glitch in the onboard computer, which was fixed by them reprogramming the computer. Apparently that glitch must have bypassed those so called fail safes you mentioned. The tech had to upload some program from the factory into his scan tool then download it from the scan tool into the onboard computer in my truck. Something I could not have done at home obviously. Had a similar cruise control problem in my old '89 Chevy S10 Blazer and it turned out to be a faulty control module, which was replaced. Yes, I could have changed the oil and replaced the brakes myself, but after chasing problems on two of our airplanes and doing 100 hour inspections on three of our other airplanes at work this past week, I felt way too darn tired and lazy to jack up my truck, remove wheels, R&R brakes, etc. My truck is way too big for it to fit inside the garage where I am currently living and unfortunately my boss would frown on the idea of me working on my truck at work inside the nice huge heated hanger. I'm in the process of buying a new home that has a much bigger garage where my truck will have plenty of room to fit into. Lol.

 

Damn all that heated hangar and no permission to use it...tsk tsk tsk

 

Don't blame me. Blame Uncle Sam. He is the one paying those heating bills for that hanger.

 

Interesting.... You were freaking out... But yet in your next post you say the first thing you checked was foot position.. Did you take your eyes off the road to check? I know I can't see my foot position without taking my eyes of the road. But yet you looked while "smoking the tires" and trying to stop and not running over the stop line...

Your story kinda changed. You never mentioned it in you first post. Somethings not right. I would have gotten a complete explanation of the problem from the tech and the dealer. And the reason I say that is you're an aircraft mechanic, and from what you imply, are employed by the "government".

If you don't pay that much attention to what's happening with your personal vehicle. I wouldn't want to fly in anything you may be working on. That's my personal opinion. I could be wrong and you do pay more attention to the aircraft you work on, and yet don't care enough about your personal vehicle to know why it "had a major firmware error that could cause serious injury to you or someone else."

And if you had a firmware error, there must be others, in your production date, that have it also. And it's also interesting that similar thing happened on your chevy...

I also think you had your foot on the gas pedal.