[lee]

but I'll try.

Discovering cruise control: I work on Cape Canveral, and the road leading off site is long and HEAVILY police patroled (Federal traffic tickets - no sense of humor). I usually set CC at about 52 (50mph limit). CC worked before switch failed - didn't work after failure - works again (after switch replacement).

Gas mileage: My only other transportation is a motorcycle. We have been having heavy tropical rainstorms of late, so I drove the SVX to/from work for several days with the problem (round trip is about 75 miles). Once at home, we (wife & I) usually go back out in the wife's vehicle so I have a pretty good base to judge mileage (standard route - 375 miles/week). I attribute the change in mileage to no TC lockup.

Most of the stuff I found by messing around as I drove off the Cape. For example, when it wouldn't kick down manually to 3rd, I tried 2nd, then 1st. At stop lights I tried leaving it in 1st; and tried the manual switch. Nothing worked like it did before. The change in shift characteristic (especially downshift on slowing) was unmistakeable. But impressively, it always picked up in a proper gear, 1st, 2nd, or 3rd depending on traffic flow, then upshifted about where it would when all was right, just harsher.

No codes came up - in fact you can't get codes with a defective switch - run the diagnostics and the power light just sits there in steady illumination. Alldata manual says to check inhibitor, wiring, etc. So I ran out to the garage and tried starting in reverse. It DID turn over and the wires were properly connected, so that was my first clue the switch had failed.

I took the old inhibitor switch apart tonight. There's a plastic arm about 3/8" square, maybe 1-1/2" long with three contact points that track copper runners in the housing. Along the lines of an ignition switch's electrical contacts if anyone has had one of those apart. Anyway, the plastic arm broke. I kept the old switch. I think a new part could be made by somebody with talent (not me) and a block of teflon. Everything else in the switch is very robust. I don't "think" it could partially fail as it is a very simple moving arm rubbing copper contacts - contacts that depend on position in the arc to tell the system what gear is selected.

"A common failure?" Don't know, only been an SVX owner for less than a year now.