Hello,
Did search and found no other similar threads. Recent problem with cruise on highway at around 70 MPH. Tapped brakes to disengage but throttle maintained speed. Pushed cruise off switch on steering and still held 70 MPH. Put A/T in neutral and slowed with brakes into breakdown lane by which time tach was up to 4000 RPM. Turned ignition off. No, I don't remember if cruise light went out on dash, it happened all too fast. Restarted and RPM's back to normal idle speed. Drove rest of trip minus cruise. Perfect weather, no rain, temps in 50's. Have tried several times since and of course cannot duplicate. Cruise control now works fine Any thoughts ?
Thanks

 

Is your throttle system drive-by-wire or mechanical (cable)?

 

cougar-fan,

good question. I don't do much of my own work anymore since being in a wheelchair. My guess being a 2007 is that it's probably not a cable throttle and instead a wired throttle with input control from ECU.
Also, a point I forgot to mention is that it had hand controls installed earlier this year. Brake lever is mechanically linked to brake pedal but throttle control is wired to ECU system somehow. Monday, I called Ford to check on any recalls or similar complaints and was told no. Then called the company who installed these hand controls and he's denying their system could cause this. Finally, I called a shop that specializes in working electrical issues. He told me there's a high chance he won't find anything if it's not failing now but he highly suspects it's the hand control system or possibly a binding actuator. Will see him tomorrow morning and see if we can end the finger pointing.

 

I don't think the hand controls could have caused this ... even assuming that the brake on/off switch failed to disengage the cruise control, pressing the CRUISE OFF button should have done the job - and it didn't.

Since the engine revved up wildly when you put the tranny in neutral and hit the brakes, it is clear that the cruise control was still engaged, and remained active even after you stopped the vehicle, which is another malfunction (afaik, the cruise control should disengage itself automatically if the speed drops below 35 mph or so).

I know it is a hard case to make with any car maker after the Toyota sudden acceleration nightmare, but for your own safety, be extra careful when engaging the cruise control from now on. Your handling of the situation was by the book, but there is a high chance that nobody will ever find any problems on the car, and even if they do find something, nobody will ever admit they found it, they'll probably suggest replacing some hardware so Ford can get their hands on the malfunctioning part and investigate quietly.

HTH ...

 

You are absolutely right about being very cautious with cruise control from now on. Went to visit tech this morning and since it was a one time event, he didn't want to waste time and charge me for troubleshooting and most likely finding nothing. He did look at the wiring install job and it appears like a quality job. This system uses 2 digital channels for redundancy and to eliminate electrical interference. He checked for any technical service bulletins related to this from Ford and there are none. Since it is wired in to take place of the gas pedal input and their digital signal somehow converts to analog for the factory wiring input, he strongly believes it's the hand control somehow causing this. Says he's seen many after market remote start systems cause havoc in factory wiring. Told me to come back if it starts to duplicate more often. If cruise fails to disengage again after tapping brake and pressing CRUISE OFF, before putting A/T in neutral , I will set the hand control system switch to off [which returns throttle control back to the gas pedal] and see what happens.
Until then, if it ever happens again, I'm wondering if I should report this incident to some government safety agency. Not as bad as the Toyota problem but still a reason for concern.

 

I'm skeptical that the govt will do anything about this, because you had a major modification done to your car ... they'll probably go after the installer if their gear is not approved for civilian use, but I guess that'll be it .. Ford can always say they didn't approve the aftermarket mod. You'd probably be better off trying to find out if anybody else using the same mods had similar problems with their cars. In any case, drive safely ... all the advice you received from the shop you went to is valid and to the point. Good luck, and please post if anything else changes in this case, we'd be very happy to help!