Wot - Just the 1 fog light?

SnubNose

SnubNose

Member
Well Snubnose has her first MOT tomorrow and as I’m so conscientious I thought I’d check the basics so that (touch wood) she passes without a hitch.

Anyhoo – while checking the lights, all was okay until we switched on the rear fogs, only one illuminated. Luckily I had a spare bulb so I opened up the rear cluster from inside the boot and found that there was no bulb in the cluster, strange. I fitted my spare and expected it to light-up, but nothing is that easy – it didn’t work!!

As always I came inside and fired up the font of all knowledge. Checking the Archives there have been a few threads on this topic and it appear that it is standard that only one (off side in this country) works.

Personally I do like symmetry even if I can’t see it, it’s nice to know it all neat and even back there. There were suggestions that two fogs are dangerous as the glare can mask the brake lights, with three brake lights I can’t see that being a problem. If it’s foggy enough to warrant the high vis rears to be switched on - the more light the better.

Has anyone run a cable from offside to near to get both working? If so where did you run and connect the cable? I assume the fuse is man enough to take the load.
 
You'll need to get a suitable pin from Mr Audi and then put it into the vacant position on the connector on the nearside.

Then, run a cable from it to the connector on the offside and piggyback it to the wire there. To make a neat job of it, you should remove the rear panel in the boot and incorporate the new wire into the existing loom.

The fuse is indeed man enough for the job.

Cheers,

Mike
 
Thanks Mike

Is there nothing that you don't know???????

Have you done this? Or did you feel it wasn't worth the effort?

When you say suitable pin, will the nice Mr Audi Spares Dept know what I'm talking about or do I need to be more specific with detailed description or part number?
 
I'm sure that there are things I don't know - Tank is going in to Mr Audi to have his door locks looked at tomorrow. The nearside rear door is locked and won't open from either the inside or the outside and I'm a little perplexed at the moment. If it was out of warranty, I daresay I'd take the time to work it out though!

Anyway, it is a job I've done myself and it is worth doing. Some cars I've come across had 2 fitted as standard too, so there's no reason why you shouldn't do it.

The pin you need is: 000 979 225 and costs £1.14. What you get is a piece of yellow wire about a foot long with a pin on each end. Cut it in half and you then insert one of the pins into the connector and run a wire off the end to the existing fog light pin on the other side.

You've then got another pin as a spare.

Cheers,

Mike
 
This seems to be a theme with Audi (and others?) Our A6 Avant (C5) is the same and I read that alot of owners have done the mod that you are thinking about.
As for the safety aspects - at one time it was considered that the change, when braking with brake/rear lights that shared a bulb with two filaments, could be lost when placed too close to high intensity fog lights. I think Ford overcame this by effectively having 5 red rear lights, three soley for braking and tail lights which could be made high intensity for fog. I though this was quite sensible I wonder why it never caught on?

Cheers

Jonathan
 
For any body who is interested the regs state that the foglight must be at least 100mm from any brake light to the rear of a car, if a single foglight is fitted it must be off centre.
Hence this situation, the safety srgument is a good one but I suspect it has more to do with saving a few bob per vehicle, might only be say £2 but multiply that by say a million vehicles and you have a £2m profit for nothing!!!
Mike
 
It seems that the regs are being largely ignored then.

Have you seen the position of the fog on the Mk2 TT?

It is central in the lower valance and there is just the one!

Cheers,

Mike
 
Just call me 2 fogs......

Got the wire and connectors from Mr Audi (always interesting looking round the showroom at the £60k Q7 or the £54k A4 Avant Quattro!!!)

Both lights now connected and working, the connector pin was very tight in the plug and at first I wondered if it was too big as the cable was also quite a heavy gauge, but it slipped in with a bit of extra effort (Thanks for the Info Mike).
It looks much better with both working on the odd occasion when they are required.

In the rain yesterday all the clever drivers switched on their fog lights in an attempt to dazzle the rest of us. How difficult is it to understand the correct usage of rear fogs. If we get a drop of rain or a wisp of fog then every one switches them on as they leave the drive and off 2 weeks later.

It was interesting to see the TT as Mike suggested, with the single fog in the middle and the Nissan X-Trail has the same central style. I can't believe this is against regs if big manufacturers are doing it.

.
 
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