HELLO FOLKS! AS A (FORMER) CERTIFIED NISSAN TECHNICIAN: I THOUGHT I WOULD TOSS THIS ITEMOUT AND SEE IF ANYONE HAS SIMILAR EXPERIENCE(s). THE CRUISE CONTROL ON MY 1995 300ZX CONVERTIBLE RECENTLY WENT SOUTH. (BOTH LIGHTS COME ON: "CRUISE" (SWITCH) - "SET" (STALK)). NO RESPONSE TO THROTTLE. "SET" LIGHT GOES OFF IN ABOUT 15 SECONDS. THE CURIOUS THING IS MY 1993 2+2 AUTOMATIC HAD SAME ISSUE. TURNED OUT TO BE A ASCD CONTROL UNIT. (SEVERELY EXPENSIVE, AND TOTALLY UNAVAILABLE, EVEN FROM NISSAN.) INTERESTING ALSO: THE TWO CARS HAVE COMPLETELY DIFFERENTLY UNITS! JUST CURIOUS IF ANYONE HAS HAD SIMILAR PROBLEM BEFORE I WASTE MY PRECIOUS SUMMER DRIVING TIME ON A CONVULUTED DIAGNOSTIC TREE TO VERIFY. I USE C/C ALL THE TIME.(LAZY I GUESS!) APPARENTLY THE Z32 DOES NOT SHARE MY ENTHUSIASM. THANKS IN ADVANCE. ZMAN1

Wait ~ do I undrstnd you had two different units, on two different model years, which did the same fuction, BOTH fail?

It sounds like the only constant in that equation is YOU~ What could you possibly be doing to both carz which would make both units fail?

Frank T

A FAIR QUESTION, FRANK. NOW FOR THE GOOD PART: THE DARN C/C STARTED TO WORK AGAIN! CHECKED MY SERVICE MANUAL DIAGNOSTIC TREE...IF/WHEN THERE'S AN ISSUE; STILL POINTS TO CONTROL UNIT. (NO FLASH CODES: "BRAINDEAD". CHECKED FOR MOISTURE; NONE. LOOSE CONNECTORS; NONE. RELAYS...SWITCHES...SENSORS...ALL GOOD. SINCE IT LIKES TO WORK MOST OF THE TIME AT THE MOMENT....THE HECK WITH IT. WEIRD THOUGH, HUH? COMPLETELY DIFFERENT MODULES! PROBABLY DUMB-LUCK. HARDLY A LIFE/DEATH ISSUE EITHER WAY. RDM

It might be like my new Subaru.

one day out of nowhere, the suraru outback had a check engine light, and the cruise control light flashing... and the cruise control didn't work.

I googled the problem...and that's the way to tell you your gas cap is not seated right. sure enough, I turned the engine off, took off the gas cap, put it back on, re-started the car...and the light went out, and the cruise control worked.

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Also Known As Clayton Pace

Caps Lock is cruise control for the cool...

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-Chris

Yea, why you yellin at us? There's 2 different years for #1, you say one is an automatic, is the other standard? Thats #2 and one is a 2+2 the other is a coupe, that's #3. Sounds completly normal to me. It's a MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD World out there for parts. Loose gas cap on a new car today will most likely set the Engine light on, bad gasket too. I love the old stuff.

I would be inclined to *GUESS* that you might be somehow short-circuiting those units with some aftermarket doodad you have installed on both cars, which you use occasionally. If everything in each unit checks out OK (functional bench test), I would suspect power-in somehow being diverted.

Second *GUESS* on an American car would be a vacuum problem at the servo.

Q: Do both cars have A/C?
Q: Did both units quit during similar weather? (Temperature is always a consideration)
Q: Did both units quit while you were using the same accessories on each car? (Radio, lights, A/C, defroster, WSW, etc?). Might be hard to recall by now, but next time it happens you could take notes ~ that might give you a place to start. In police investigations, many mysteries get solved by process of elimination, after gathering all possibilities, even if they're improbable.

I've never had Cruise Control on my Z, so I don't even know where it would be mounted.....but if they were both behind the A/C condenser or something, I could maybe picture condensation splashing bkwrds onto the connections to momentarily short them out or something like that. You might try covering the connections with tape, just to see if anything changes.

Q: Assuming you parked both cars in the same driveway, your home isn't built over Sacred Indian Burial Grounds, is it?

Intermittent issues are the BEST!

Yeah Rich ~ I hear you just LOVE a good Underhood Puzzle!

By the way guyz ~ I knew a fellah who had numerous intermittent electrical problems with his car, and it turned out to be the ignition switch. Once he learned that, he simply jiggled the key a little each time something stopped working. Stuff came back on like magic! He sold the car (A Capri) without ever changing the switch ~ he said he had already spent "millions" on new parts and wasn't gonna spend another nickel as long as he could 'fix' stuff by shaking the key around.

AND ~ the Cruise Control on my old Ford Exploder kept quitting on me, too. Sometime it would work, sometime it would work for a while then quit, other times it just wouldn't turn on at all.

Totally baffling until I followed my own truck one day, and noticed the brake lights briefly flashing on/off. The pedal and brake switch were unhappy with eachother, allowing the switch to sometimes ride at the very edge of activation without pressure on the pedal. Any bump or vibration would cause the brake lights to come on, even tho the brakes weren't being used. THAT, of course, killed the cruise control instantly.

Wow! it is GREAT to be in this club and get all these responses to a problem! All you guys are obviously on the beam with these cars. responding in order: Sorry about the "CAPITAL" letters. Nasty habit i picked-up writing to my first wife's attorney! / #2 No water damage involved, the '93 was an automatic 2+2 which '93 cars for some reason had an exclusive c/c control unit. My '95 is a convertible 5speed. All units for that year were identical. / #3 All factory diagnostic trees led me to the same place. Wiring issues would have caused different codes.(according to the Nissan factory manual. The '93 "cruise" stopped working altogether and never came back. The ragtop started working again and now works most of the time. / #4 You are right...intermittent problems are a pain. I do have access to Nissan's Technical ASIST line, which comes in handy for the Z32 models when they have these problems. But for the older Z cars, not much use. Cruise control would not be an issue at all to me, except I have a couple of blown-out discs in my spine and the less i use the pedals, the longer i can enjoy the car. Thanks to all for the info. RDM

Frank, just place a brick on the gas pedal....cruise control.