I recently purchased a Fiat 500 as a run about car. Being a 2014 model it has most of the modern conveniences that you would want on it with the exception of cruise control. Oddly, at least for the Australian market, cruise control was not even an option you could order from Fiat. This is strange as in modern cars with electronic throttles adding cruise control can be as simple as adding the switch and enabling the option in the cars’ computer. Manufacturers love this as it’s a $20 part that you can retail for $700.
Fortunately there are a few after market cruise options available that also take advantage of the electronic throttle and the cars OBD port that makes adding cruise control to my car a relatively simple job.
The kit I purchased is known as the Autostrada E cruise kit from a Queensland company who operates on eBay. The kit itself cost $560 and took around a week to arrive. Part of the process is sending off a pic of your accelerator connector as there are two different styles on the fiat 500, then they make the cables to suit your car. I have had the same style of cruise control on a company car a few years back, it is a rather simple device that works well with just one stalk that attached to the steering column. The below pics are a pictorial example of the fitment of the cruise kit to my 2014 Fiat 500.
Below is the full contents of the kit.
The first job after disconnecting the battery is to remove the bottom steering column cover. There are two Philips head screws underneath it while the cover is clipped to the top half with one clip on the left side and two clips on the right side. The left was easiest to pull apart first, while the right side took a bit of force.
Once the column is off you have access to the back of the key, here you need to add the power wire from the control unit to the ignition wire. If you unplug the ignition wire you can drag it down to the floor to give you better access to it. The kit suggests all connections should be soldered, so I stripped a bit of plastic away on the orange wire and wrapped the new power wire around it and then soldered and insulated the connection with insulation tape.
The next job is to add the two wires to the back of the OBD port. This job was a bit awkward and I really wish there was an adaptor plug included like with the accelerator pedal cable. The best you can do is to unbolt the two t25 bolts on the frame that holds the OBD port and then get access to the back of the cables this way. The OBD port is behind the coin tray between the door and the steering wheel, this tray easily pulls down and off to reveal the port.
The instructions stated connect the “Red to Green. Pin 6” and the “Black to White. pin 14. In some cars this pin is a Brown wire”. In my case this was the brown wire, although there also is a white wire on the connector. If in doubt always go by the pin number which can be seen down the middle of the back of the plug. Again I connected it like I did the power cable.
The next job is to connect the accelerator cable, fortunately this was very easy. I just slid out the brown leaver holding the plug in and the plugged in the new cable with the old cable also plugged into the new cable.
Finally, it was time to add the stalk to the steering column and put everything back together. When tidying up the cables ensure none go near the knee airbag and also add the control box to somewhere where it won’t rattle. In my case I cable tied it to the loom above the accelerator peddle so it is resting on the firewall insulation.
There is also a LED in the kit that I decided to mount near the OBD port as I only intended to use it for diagnostics and I didn’t want the LED mounted on the dash.
If you intend to install your own kit use the pics above as a guide only and always follow the instructions supplied with the kit as things might change depending on your model of car and kit.
Wrap up
I’m fairly happy with the kit it does exactly what it is said to do and only took one afternoon to install. Some cars are a lot easier to retrofit cruise control to than others, Some Peugeots and Ford Fiestas come to mind, where you only have to buy the cruise control switch and then enable the option via the OBD port. Sadly this was not the case with my Fiat so my retrofit of cruise control was a bit more expensive and the stalk does not match the rest of the switch gear exactly. This is a small trade off compared to driving comfort and potential speeding fines without cruise control.