A few months ago my cruise control illumination light stopped working. I figured something had gotten messed up with the wiring (I have a JDM I/C Spray switch and the illumination wires are spliced into the Cruise ones) since if I jiggled the wiring around a bit it would flicker. Well today I got around to redoing the whole thing, striped it down, soldered it up, shrink tubing over the whole shebang. Checked it with a multimeter and it looked great, plug it in and, WTF? still doesn't work. Tested it with a multimeter and had 11.76 volts across the pins. I aligator clipped the I/C sprayer switch into the Cruise socket and it still didn't work. Put the Cruise illumination pins to the I/C spray button and it lit up.

So it looks like the wiring is fine (good thing, i'm pretty much done trying to cleanly solder three wires together in a car, on a cold night), but the switch is dead apparently? I'm not really sure how these switches are set up, i've never messed with them before. I'll assume the easiest thing to do would be to just replace the whole damned switch, which I suppose is doable. The problem is I can't figure out how to get the damned switches out, let alone where to get a new switch for a reasonable price (junk yard i guess ?).

How often do these things go out? I've never heard of it before.

So it doesn't light up, or it doesn't engage the cruise control? What kinda car is it?...it doesn't say in your profile. For most of the cars, the switch just pushes out of the plastic cover it is mounted in, in the dash. In my car, I can remove the F/B cover and get my hand behind it so I can push it out. Mine wouldn't light up as the bulb burned out. I replaced the bulb and all was well.

Have a look at this thread:

http://forums.nasioc.com/forums/showthread.php?p=12840875&mode=linear#post12840875

lol, same happened to me 2 weeks ago. the Cruise button works just fine to turn it on but the illum is dead. and the Fog and Wiper Heater buttons light up fine. wierd, right?

im not worried about it for now.

there's a little bulb inside the switch (for most of the switches, if you pull the switch, you can get to the bulb base from the side) - it's burnt out in yours.

ahh, thanks guys! should be able to get it taken are of tomorrow.

Someone in that thread said that Subaru will replace the switch under warranty?

What part of the warranty is this covered under?

I have an '03 WRX with 40,100 on it... I certainly wouldn't mind replacing the bulb, but if Subaru will do it for me that'd be an awesome solution.

I don't think you are covered for this one. The bulb will cost $2 at Radio SMack for two bulbs and shouldn't take you more than 15 minutes to R&R.