Believe me, I know. My Vantage doesn't have Cruise Control and I really wish it did. In fact, I'm thinking of having it added as it can be very handy on the long, straight, boring drive from Melbourne to Orlando.

The sad part is that, in reality, all Vantages actually have the capability of cruise control because they have throttle-by-wire (as opposed to using a throttle cable).

In order to add the cruise control option to a Vantage, you need to add the switches on the steering wheel and then set a value in the system software to state that Cruise = TRUE. That's it!

What sucks is that Aston decided to make cruise control an option so they could charge more money for something that really should be standard on a car of this caliber. To make matters worse, the only way to add the physical cruise control switches to the steering wheel is to replace the entire steering wheel with a brand new one!

We should really start a list of things we expect to be standard our cars. Might be fun if a bit depressing. I'll start:

- Cruise Control
- Smart Key entry and ignition
- Homelink
- HID headlights (standard on V12V but not V8V
- Auto-On Headlights at dusk
- Front Park Assist
- what else?

 

Oh no! Sorry about that. I assumed nearly every car had this optioned. Sounds expensive to retrofit. Speaking of ridiculous options, Grant's book says that leather seats were originally an option on the Vantage. Can you imagine a Vantage with cloth seats?!

Good question as to options that should be standard. I'm thinking that good candidates are:

- carpet mats
- two crystal ECUs instead of one
- auto-dimming rearview mirror
- iPod integration
- heated/memory seats
- Blutooth integration

 

Based on the response to my original posting-- I must have been wrong in thinking that my 007 Vantage had "auto" feature for the headlights. All the other cars in my collection have that feature, and for some reason I thought the Vantage did too. I think it is somewhat funny that the service advisors and service technicians at the dealer did not simply say that the car never did have that feature. Instead they spent an hour (free fortunately) checking things out and investigating my complaint. Thanks for the input everyone. Kent

 

Actually..you need the complete steering wheel also..you can cut your original to fit the cruise switch..but there isn't any extra wiring in your non-cruise steering wheel for the switch to the steering clock-spring, and the extra wiring only comes with a cruise option steering wheel.. There was a bulliten on this..and yes like you said, the ecu needs to be flashed for cruise option which Aston does..

 

There actually is a way around this, but it would cost you a calibration file from Aston by your locat dealer..give take $100-300(depending on tax and dealer charge in you area). You can get the DRL's activated and never worry about the lights again, you can leave the switch off/on and nothing will matter, headlight will always be on and the dash/console will function via the solar sensor/dimmer switch

 

Yeah, I think KF realizes this as he already mentioned that he'll need a new wheel. Crazy that this is necessary!