Hi - Has anyone sucessfully replaced the weak factory OEM fog lights with some real decent lights?

I have already upgraded the bulbs and it still doesn't make much visible difference at all when driving.


Does anyone know if it's just a bad design, or bad lenses, or what, that make the factory fogs so marginal?

Has anyone put 85W or 100W bulbs in the factory fogs? I have heard this is deprecated due to excessive heat - true or not?

thanks for any info!!

regards,

robc

 

have you tried to adjust them "up" a little? I did that to mine and they are a little better but not great!!! I'm going to try a H7 yellow bulb I picked up from craigslist....hope to install them this weekend

 

Thats wierd i love the fogs, i drive around without headlights all the time cuz the fogs are bright enough.

 

be careful with higher wattage bulbs, there have been reports of melting the wiring harness.

aim them up a little, white plastic dial, uses a philips head to adjust, dont adjust too high or they'll be in opposing traffic's eyes

i run yellows and it appears to give me more light, i personally think it works great for my eyes.

 

I too run yellows lights (replaced bulbs only), cheaper than getting Xenon Fog kits, which I wanted to do originally.

 

Adjusting them make a big difference. The housings dont take well to having over-wattage bulbs in them, the reflectors and housings distort from the heat, and the lens is prone to cracking.

 

I will have a go at ajusting them first before I do anything else....

cheers,


rob

 

Rclements, did adjusting the Fog lights up work for you?

 

The factory fog lights are actually quite good. For fog, the idea is that you cannot throw much light through it, as it reflects back at the driver.

Instead, you all of throw the foglight output down low to the ground, under the fog, so you can see the road well enough to creep along at a safe speed.

The MINI fog lights are just that - FOG lights, and you cannot adjust them up enough to act as driving lights, because they were designed so people cannot set them up high enough to blind oncoming drivers - EU regulations.

That said, modifying the fog light sockets to take H9 bulbs is a ten-minute job, and can nearly double the output with a moderate 65-watt bulb. Try the one on this page for 2100 lumens instead of 1350 lumens stock...

http://www.danielsternlighting.com/p.../products.html

 

And cause the problems as posted by Greatbear...........sheesh

 

have you done the higher wattage bulb upgrade? just curious if youve gotten the same results as greatbear

 

I guess I have to chime in on my comment here for a couple reasons. Early on, there were some people fitting something like 100 watt bulbs into the various housings and having some pretty disasterous results. Melted reflectors and broken glass lenses on the fog lights, distorted reflectors and diffusers in the headlights, broken glass lenses on the OEM driving lights. The glass tends to break not from the heat as much as from thermal shock when they get wet after being on and hot a while.

Now, I have the 65 watt 'upgraded' H7 lamps (hand delivered by Daniel Stern himself! ) fitted to my headlights with success. The increased light is just noticable, not drastic. The housings take the slight increase in heat with no problems now for at least two years now. The headlights have some room around the bulbs to deal with a slight increase in heat, but doubling the wattage is something I would not do. Someone on MINI2 had a photo of distorted headlight housings from WAY overwattage bulbs several years back.

I would recommend the 65 watt bulbs for the headlights. I would not run anything higher than stock in the fog lights though. The small housing gets very hot with 55 watt bulbs as it is. Perhaps a 10 watt boost will do no harm, but hugely bright fog lights run counter to their intended use IMO.

 

thanks for chime in greatbear

 

 

My experience exactly mirrors that reported by greatbear in his second post. I've run the 65-watt Daniel Stern bulbs in my fogs since `05 with no apparent problems.

I do go out of my way to avoid overheating problems by not using them in hot weather, using them only when it is actually foggy or I am on a hairpin road at night and the temp is 65 or lower.

The 50% higher output makes them somewhat better fog lights, and improves the side-spill that you get, which helps see next to the road and into tight curves on mountain twisties.

It's worth pointing out that making the fog lights a lot brighter or using them during normal driving is actually counterproductive: your eye sees more total light so your pupil contracts due to the additional light. This makes the actual road ahead, where you ought to be looking, dimmer and harder to see.

Just as a matter of general interest, the first mod I made to my car was to replace every external bulb in it with brighter ones from DS.

In each case, I used bulbs which are 15-20% higher wattage, which is well within the tolerances of MINI wiring and computers. I've had no problems at all, and it makes the car more visible to others, and gives better visibility for the driver.