Hello. My steering wheel controls haven't worked for some time now. Not all of them, about half. So the Horn works. The Volume up doesn't work, Volume down works. A/C fan up doesn't work, A/C down works. Radio station seek works. Temp up doesn't work, temp down works. All cruise control buttons don't work.
I'm guessing it's either the buttons themself are bad or the clockspring? Before I buy one or the other, which would you recommend I buy first? Those parts aren't cheap so if I take the risk, I'd like to try the best odds first! Thank you for your time and expertise.

 

My money would be on the clock spring.

 

Thank you for your response. One more thing to note. Is the airbag light is not on, and the horn still works. Which I've read that if the clockspring is bad, than the light might come on and the horn might stop working. So the fact that those aren't part of the problem is throwing a curve ball. Also I've read if you turn your steering wheel to the far left and right, while trying the buttons, sometimes it'll make them work. This isn't the case for me. They don't work no matter what.

 

The airbag and horn are just other possible symptoms. Since the cruise buttons are on one side and the radio buttons are on the other side, id guess they are separate components but the signals all must go through the clockspring is what leads me to think the clockspring is the common denominator. Not saying it couldn't be the switches though.
you could do a little testing by taking the switches out and probing the contacts and see if the vol. up or fan up circuits close when you push the up buttons. That seems like it would prove out the switch working or not.

 

Had the same issue a couple of years ago on my 2004 Lariat. Some buttons worked, and some didn't. Replaced the switches and the problem was solved. Will share procedure used if needed.

 

Hmm yeah not a bad idea. I'll actually do that now. This would pretty much let me know for sure. Thanks for the idea! Will give update.

 

I don’t know enough about this to draw any conclusions, but seems to be a pattern of “up” buttons not working, but “down” working. I have a hard time believing that this many buttons would just fail, and if they did, that the ups would be the ones to fail.

Perhaps someone else here with more knowledge of system/circuits can comment if they think this is simply coincidence ?

 

Yeah it is quite the coincidence... I'm about to see if I can bypass the buttons using a wire jumper to narrow out the switches being the problem. If this troubleshooting method is possible, then we're about to find out. Just watching a vid now and about to head outside. Will update asap.

 

 

@needsmoarturbo Thank you man! I just got everything disassembled and man this doesn't make sense to me... So here in the photo I took. You see the connector unplugged with 4 pin holes. There are 5 wires going into the back of the connector. Each pin hole has 1 wire but the 3rd pin hole counting from left to right, has 2 wires of the same color going into it (orange/green). I just don't see how this makes any sense. If there are 4 switches and each switch has an up or down function, how the heck does 4 pins achieve this, huh...