Briefly lost acceleration, check engine light on and cruise light flashing...
What is your question?
This happened as I pulled onto a busy street from a parking lot. The car lost acceleration, stalled and stranded me in a turn lane. I fired it up...started but no response from gas pedal. Turned car off for about 2 minutes, recovered accelerator response and moved car back into parking lot. Let car sit for a moment, started again but check engine light on and cruise light flashing. Saw a post from someone else on this forum about resetting cruise control circuit. Tried it and it worked after a couple tries. Both check engine light and cruise are off now. Safe to drive or do I have a more serious problem? Car seems to be running ok now. Suggestions?
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Hello,
Subaru's deactivate cruise control when most diagnostic trouble codes are set and illuminate the check engine light.
If there is a real issue, resetting will certainly be a temporary solution.
Always scan for trouble codes before resetting the computer, or hard resetting any electrical system that is controlled by the computer. This will give some indication of what is happening when the light comes back on.
Further, consider that the computer runs on software, just like your phone or laptop. Updates are made available through the dealership, and this can squish any bugs that exist in the vehicles programming.
Your next step will be to scan for trouble codes, as there may be a pending code that needs a couple more parameters met to set the check engine light. Then, have that code diagnosed. If there is nothing found to be in error, you may need a re-flash (think of it as updating your computer).
