Eurovan cruise control only works randomly

[squashmeister]

Does anyone have experience of cruise control that engages and works perfectly most of the time, but occasionally and apparently completely randomly refuses to engage when I push the Set button. Then, a few minutes or a couple of hours later, it works again. The EVC is a 1995 with the 5-cylinder engine and manual transmission. Is the problem more likely to be in the switch or under the hood? Any wisdom would be much appreciated.

[IdeaNerd]

We have this issue on one of our vans (to the point usually go ahead and push the button more than once when engaging it). I've not had time to dig into it, but I've always assumed it's probably the switch itself given its behavior. Perhaps just needing cleaning, like the mirror switches sometimes do:
https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=765420

[kourt]

Something I did that helped the CC function reliably was to remove the steering wheel and clean all the wiring and contacts in that area with Deoxit. This includes any contacts which depend on spring tension (many of the stalks work this way) and any wiring connectors. Open everything up and clean it.

Before cleaning: setting the speed might take three pushes of the button.

After cleaning: first time, every time.

This same cleaning procedure fixed some flaky wiper controls as well.

kourt

[squashmeister]

Thanks guys