P0573: Cruise Control Brake Switch A Circuit High
What to do
Check the brake lights immediately. If they do not come on, the car is genuinely unsafe in traffic and should not be driven until repaired. Often just an adjustment rather than a new part.
What this code means
The cruise control brake switch circuit is reading high — an open circuit, or a switch that never closes. The vehicle cannot tell when the brakes are being applied, so cruise control will not engage and the brake lights may not illuminate at all.
A misadjusted switch is a very common cause and costs nothing to correct: the plunger simply is not being reached by the pedal arm.
Likely causes
Start here
- Faulty brake light switch · easy
- Open circuit in sensor wiring · moderate
- Corroded or loose connector · easy
Symptoms
Components involved
Information, not instruction
CarGeek is a reference, not a service manual. Its pages are written from public sources and from what other people have found, never from a manufacturer's own service information, so they can be wrong or incomplete for your particular vehicle. Some of what they describe carries real risk: high voltage, fuel under pressure, stored energy, hot and moving parts.
Have anything you intend to act on checked by a trained person against the manufacturer's own procedure for your vehicle. Nothing here replaces that procedure.
Community experience
Be the first to write this up
Nothing posted about this yet. Whatever you found is worth writing down — even a dead end saves someone the same afternoon.
What makes one worth reading:
- The car — make, model, year and engine. The same fault behaves differently on each.
- What you measured, not only what you replaced.
- What actually fixed it — or that nothing did, which is worth knowing too.
Sign in or create an account to add what you found about P0573.