Wow thats great, considering how expensive the cruise control option is at the dealership at the time of purchase.

 

Wow I got an 05 ST, Going to the dealership tommarow for some switches, I cannot believe it is that easy.

 

Let me know how it goes, I got a 05 ST to and id LOVE to add Cruise.
But it sounds like the 05-06 needs Servo's and the 07 is a Electronic Throttle

Thats what I got from reading this. lol

 

Thats correct, if you have an 06 or 05, the switches don't do anything. I know because I already tried this. You have to get the servo unit, switches, and have your dealership starscan it.

 

Hey y'all, first time poster, long time lurker.

2005 ST here. I was fortunate enough to do this mod when Dodge sold the entire cruise control kit as an "under the hood" accessory, but it appears they no longer do so. At the time it was listed on the Mopar website and ChryslerPartsDirect.com where I got it for $194, however my original packing list didnt have a part number for the kit, nor does the 2005 Dakota Parts List pdf have the kit either (it does have the numbers individually for each cruise control part).

If you can get a hold of the switches, servo, and bracket, it is a very easy install. The servo mounts under the air cleaner box next to an existing (unused) wiring harness snapped to a dummy plug, and this plugs into the servo. Route the throttle actuator cable and vaccuum hose around the left side of the engine bay, connect the vaccuum hose to the unused side of the Tee fitting behind the engine just below the passenger-side wiper, and connect the throttle cable on the unused clip of the butterfly valve. Switches, as posted earlier, replace the caps on the wheel, and the wires have been pre-run in the wheel & plugged into the back of the caps.

That's it! You do NOT need to have it starscanned (contrary to even it's own instructions) for cruise to work. The ONLY thing starscanning does is activates the "cruise" light on the dash. If you don't want to see the dash light when cruise is on (I prefer all annunciators off when everything is fine), then don't have it starscanned.

 

Welcome to the board. This is a great place for information.

That sucks that Dodge doesn't sell the kit anymore. I would imagine that the needed parts could be picked up from a junk yard. If you (or anyone else) has any individual part numbers and could post them, it would be useful for those who still want to add cruise (mine is done). I'll bet many of the parts are the same on the Ram and other similar vehicles. The steering wheel buttons on mine came from a 2004 Ram.

As for the "starscanned," (I'm assuming that means flashing the computer)... my 2007 Dakota was never flashed and the dash light still works. Flashing the computer is expensive, that is if you can find someone to do it. I looked into it prior to buying the buttons cuz I wasn't sure if it was needed.

 

Here's the page out of the 2005 Parts List for the servo hardware. Number 8 is just the existing accelerator cable and number 7 should be the existing vacuum hose with a capped-off "tee" behind the engine, in front of the passenger wiper. The servo/bracket/cruise cable came pre-assembled in the kit with the misc hardware, so I assume if you buy them separately they'll need to be assembled before installed. As mentioned before, there's an existing electrical harness snapped into a dummy plug next to where the servo mounts under the air cleaner box...Connect this to the servo. The vacuum tube (6) routes around the passenger side of the engine bay, and plugs onto the nipple on number 7. I ran the speed control cable (4) along the same run, and it connects to the throttle body next to the accelerator cable. There's a small bracket behind the throttle body where the retainers for both the accelerator cable and the cruise cable clip into, side by side:





And here are the part numbers for the switches (they carried over the diagram for the 2nd gen Dakota steering wheel in our 3rd gen/2005 parts list, so don't mind that the steering wheel looks different):





A Starscan tool is actually a device that controls "options" in the PCM like you would control the options, say, on a desktop computer program. It allows you to turn on and off various features of the vehicle. Cruise happens to be one of those Starscan options on the non-fly-by-wire 2005 (and 2006), only in this case the only thing it appears to actually "activate" is the dash light. I guess it makes sense you didn't need to have your 2007 starscanned to get the dash light, since your fly-by-wire system is already integrated into controlling each and every throttle position. Our system apparently hadn't yet reached that level of computer/control integration to recognize when the "cruise" light needs to be shown, yet for some reason the system still works fine without it. Which is fine by me.

 

Excellent post, erau! Thanks for providing so much useful information.

So if I ever actually needed something star-scanned on my truck, how much does that typically cost? Are Dodge/Jeep/Chrysler dealers the only place to have that done?

 

Before I determined I didn't need to have it done, the local dealer quoted their minimum-allowable labor time/charge which was half an hour for like $40 or $45. I really don't know if only the dealers have it, not sure the licensing on it.


Figured I'd post a couple pics of the install, helps to clarify what goes where...





Top of the pic is driver side, bottom is passenger side, right is toward the front. Servo mounts under the air cleaner box (as-shown removed). Mounting holes had already been pre-drilled in the fender cover. Note the pre-existing wiring harness now plugged in to the servo. Throttle cable comes out through the middle of the servo, and the vacuum tube comes off the side of the servo.







Cable and hose run (yellow arrows). This is the best route I could find to keep the bends as gradual as possible without any sharp corners. Those two cable clips on the left-side wall (circled in green) came with the kit, and the holes for them had already been pre-drilled.





Vacuum tube at red arrows, plugged into the existing "tee" fitting. Throttle (cruise) cable at teal arrows, its retainer slides into existing bracket next to the accelerator cable (which must be removed *carefully* from the bracket to allow the cruise cable retainer to slide in next to it). The retainer holding the accelerator cable in the bracket has a snap on it so it doesn't slide out. Be *very* careful not to break it. The end of the cruise cable clips onto the existing stud on the butterfly valve alongside the "channel" that the accelerator cable sits in.

Aside from a few turns of a screw/nut driver and cable/hose routing, it really is as plug-and-play as you can get. Just need the parts.

 

I have a universal OBDII/CAN/etc scanner that plugs into a PC via USB. I wonder if there is any software out there that I could use with it for this sorta thing (regardless of the licensing).

The link below has some info on the StarScan tool. It doesn't say anything about licensing, and who can own one but It doesn't seem like they would give this much info out if only the dealers could own them. I also don't see any info about buying one though, so idk.
http://www.dcctools.com/en/ss_info/index.html

I'm gonna keep looking for some software. Does anyone have any useful info on our Dakotas' computers? I think I read that they use the CAN protocol (or whatever that is) but they might also have some proprietary stuff too.