I tried search but didn't find the specific answer I was looking for. I replaced the "fog" on the driver's side with a back up light that matches the passenger side.

I can easily see where to run wires from the working passenger side to the other side.

I noticed the wire gauge is really small, what should I use for this? Also, rather than cut and solder or use butt connectors what it the easiest way to tap into the working side and connect the new wires to the non-working side? Any recommendations that worked well for you guys? Thanks!

 

Not sure, but I always wanted to bring up how MINI got the single reverse light that's off center to pass with the DOT. Just doesn't seem safe.

 

It's 100% legal, and unfortunately an increasing trend in recent years. The best known example was the Scion xB, where it is especially conspicuous.



It was a trend started in Europe, where rear fog lights are required. Car manufacturers skimp by installing a rear fog on one side and reverse light on the other.

 

The problem is even worse in the convertibles. I purchased a Garmin 5000 several years ago with the idea of getting a lic plate frame with a build in camera. Unfortunately the 5000 is no longer in production. I finally got around to getting the pieces put in place. The backup light works well enough in this setup. I set it up with a switch so I can turn it on at any time rather then just working when in reverse.

 

Well that was easy peasy...

I found some black wire in my electrical box and I already had a bunch of T-tap connectors. I color coded my black wire with a piece of painters tape...LOL very professional!

Started with only one backup light working and no working fog that I replaced with a second back light on the driver' side...



A little splice with t t-tap into the working side and my awesome painters tape color coded black wire...



Another splice on the non-working side...




A few wire ties to hold it to the existing wire and bada boom bada bing two backup lights! No more people telling me one of them is out!

 

Whoa, good example. I totally forgot about the xB.

And LOL @ the license plate. This actually is a OCD mod, haha.

 

Haha you caught that - yes the plate is very appropriate given my OCD nature - and you are right, having two lights that were not the same is not OCD-friendly

 

Nice job. where did you get the matching backup light? I wish it were this easy (and cheap) for the R55 Clubman. The single side reverse light drives me BONKERS!!!

 

I special ordered the driver's side (left side in the US) backup light from the dealer - part number is 63247241801 for $55 - maybe they have one for the Clubman as well.

The funny thing is that the parts guy kept telling me "I will order it but there is no way it will fit your car...it won't fit and you will be stuck with it..."

Well I trusted the part number from my NAM brothers and guess what - fit perfectly no problem LOL.

 

I recently replaced my '13 R59 left-rear red fog light with the Drivers Side Reverse Light that I got on sale from WMW, mainly to get bilateral symmetry with the appearance of the lenses from the rear. The result is that I now have one white light illuminated on the right-rear while in reverse, and one white light on the left-rear while the rear fog lights are one.

What I'd really prefer is that both lights illuminate for both of the functions (reverse gear and rear fog lights). Has anyone else done this? Any suggestions on how to wire this up?

 

A bump for the electricians out there...

 

I think you could accomplish this by doing what Jake C6R did above. You're going to connect each lamp's wiring leads to the other, so that whichever one is getting power (either from the rear fog or the reverse) shares its power with the other one.

Haven't tried this myself, but it sounds good. Proceed at your own risk. May the force be with you!

 

Thanks...I was thinking that sort of parallel hookup would work, but I'm still not quite sure what would happen if the reverse light and rear fog lights were both switched on at the same time--both providing power independently to the cross-connected circuit. Would that affect the voltage?

 

No, it wouldn't affect the voltage. Imagine that you have two water hoses from separate spigots, and then you connect the two ends together.

What might be a problem though is power from one circuit back-feeding up the other. By which I mean that light from the reverse light circuit would power your rear fog, but would also go up the other part of the wire to whatever is at the other end, which I presume is a computer-controlled switch in one of the various control modules. Said unit may act oddly if it receives power in a place that it doesn't normally, or it might even let the magic smoke escape. The prevention for this possibility would be a diode inserted into each power line upstream of the point where the two circuits are tied together. The diodes would allow power to come down the circuit from the original source, but would prevent power from the other source feeding back up. I don't know enough about how the Mini is engineered to be able to tell you if the diodes would be needed or not; sorry. (I'm not an engineer, I just pretend to be one with my model trains )

One other point that I might have missed in the discussion: Are you proposing to use the reverse lights as rear fogs? I ask because I believe some locales frown upon white lamps on the rear of a vehicle, just as they don't approve of reds on the front.l

 

Think it a cool mod and kind of gives balance to the lower rear.

Back Up Lamp - Right ( Passenger side )


http://www.ecstuning.com/Search/SiteSearch/63247241802/



&

Back Up Lamp - Left ( driver side )


http://www.ecstuning.com/Search/SiteSearch/63247241801/



With that mod in mind.

Another idea to try.

If you could run the wires to the fog light to run to both housing and run and additional bulb/ housing, drilled and glued into the housing where the red is ( as long as the white section is encapsulated ) you could have a fog light in rear and a back up light in clear. The back up lights running both clear sections. This would take some work and some modifying skills. Good luck on what ever you come up with.

 

That's a great point that I hadn't thought about. A bit of research reveals that the Iowa Code, Section 321.422 states "...No person shall display any color of light other than red on the rear of any vehicle, except that stop lights and directional signals may be red, yellow, or amber..." (I guess they don't get too bent out of shape about everyone's white license plate bulb.)

So that means a different strategy for rear fogs which I can think about later, since I rarely use it/them anyway. I do like your idea of a cross-connect with protective diodes upstream to allow both back up lights to work together. Many thanks.

 

Something you might think about for your other strategy, inspired by what ECSTuning said above: I've seen law enforcement vehicles that have had additional bulbs added to the existing lights on the car. The ones I've seen are usually strobes added to the headlight housings, but I bet the same technique could be used to add red fog bulbs to your reverse light housings. This would let you have both dual red rear fogs and dual reverse lights. Doing it this way would mean two cross-over wires, but would also negate the need to add diodes to the wiring harness. It might be worth finding out who your local PD/EMS/FD/SO use to do light installations in their unmarked vehicles . . . I bet a dozen doughtnuts would get you that information!

 

I was finally able to complete this modification and achieve two functional reverse lights and two function rear fog lights on my '13 Roadster with JCW rear bumper. Thought I'd show the whole process here in case anyone else wanted to give it a try.

Here's a photo of the rear bumper in its "as delivered" configuration. Like all other LCI JCW rear bumpers, the car comes with a single white reverse light on the passenger's side and a single red rear fog light on the driver's side.



---

That led to acquiring a clear driver's side lens to achieve some symmetry. ECS and WMW, among other vendors, both offer this fixture.



---

The look is great...that is, when none of the lights are illuminated (see picture below). Since the wiring remains unchanged, you are still left with a single white reverse light on the right side. When the rear fog light switch is selected, as you might expect the left side comes on white. Since white lights on the rear of the car while moving forward is illegal in most states, the new white lens effectively eliminates the fog light functionality. On top of that, I greatly increased the number of people who would conclude that the left reverse light bulb was burnt out.



---

It was suggested earlier in this thread that an LED might work if the cavity with the white lens was separated from the rest of the fixture with the red lens. Alas, closer inspection revealed that the inside of the light was one complete volume. Back to the drawing board.

I happened to stumble across a provider of LED bulbs for automotive applications who had LED bulbs that illuminate in red. Possible solution! I then searched Ebay and discovered a set of LED sockets that I thought might just fit the bill:



---

Here's a closer view of the socket. Note that it has tabs that can be locked with a slight twist.



---

Here are the red LED bulbs. They were advertised as replacements for Mercedes exterior accessory lighting. They are CAN BUS bulbs with built-in resistors so that the car's computer "sees" normal resistance when it does its bulb health checking and thus the car doesn't constantly throw bulb-out error codes.



---

I fabricated a wiring harness with four strands of 18 gauge wire to run between the two fixtures (the painters tape is there so I could keep track of the wires).



---

Here's my initial wiring of the passenger's side fixture. I've used two Posi-Taps (I love these connectors!) to tap into the reverse light power and ground and run it to the other side. The two long white wires will eventually bring the fog light power and ground from the driver's side. I used some liquid electrical tape to make sure the ends of the Posi-Taps were well sealed.


---

On the bottom side of each light fixture I carefully drilled a 7/16 hole, then used a Dremel to cut two notches on either side of the hole to receive the tabs on the LED sockets. I also used the Dremel to shave the plastic and make it just a bit thinner since the thickness of the bottom of the light fixture was slightly greater than what the LED socket tabs could accommodate. Here is one of the fixtures with the LED socket mounted in place on the bottom side. Note that I used more liquid electrical tape to seal up the back of the sockets. (Later in the install, I used a bit more on the socket mount to ensure a good seal and to make sure the socket didn't turn itself back and unseat the tabs from road vibrations.)



---

Here is the driver's side with the wiring completed (the light is hanging upside down in this photo). The two left-hand white wires are the leads from the passenger's side reverse light, connected to the original bulb with two Posi-seal connectors. The fog light power and ground are connected to the LED leads with two Posi-seal connectors. I then used two Posi-Taps to connect the fog light power and ground to the two harness wires leading over to the LED socket on the passenger's side.



---

Here is the driver's side light fixture reinstalled. It's hard to see, but you can sort of make out the original bulb left of center, and the LED bulb sticking up from the bottom of the fixture to the right of center.



---

And here are the results. I had my wife put the car in reverse so I could get a picture of both reverse lights coming on bright and white. (Sorry, sort of a crappy pic. It had just snowed a bit and I think my camera lens was a bit fogged up...but you get the idea...)



And here are the red rear fog lights (the LEDs) illuminated. I like the pattern they project down on to the pavement.



---

All in all, not that difficult of a mod if you are comfortable with basic wiring. Frankly, the most challenging part is getting the fixture in and out of the black plastic surround without having the edges of the fixture scratch the plastic. That black plastic is soft and it would be very easy to put marks into it. Not a good thing if you're as OCD as me.

I'm very happy with the result, and not a single code thrown.

 

That's awesome , very nice mod. Glad I could help.

 

Just wanted to say thank you for this thread just finished this install today. This was one of the few things bugging me on the mini.

 

Great writeup! How do you remove the factory drivers side rear fog enclosure?

 

I found it easiest to just pop the lens out of the black plastic bumper insert. There are small tabs on the lens that hold it in place and in the proper position. Use extreme care because the black plastic insert is relatively pliable and soft, and the tabs on the lens can easily cut grooves into the edges of the opening during removal and reinstallation. I used a combination of heavy tape and a couple of putty knives to protect the edges of the insert whilst removing and reinserting the lens. I found it easiest to tilt the lens out from the top to remove it.

It is possible to take out the entire black bumper insert (there are tabs on the bumper cover that hold it in place) but the top tabs are hard to reach and somewhat brittle. And when and if you get it out, you're still left with the task of getting the lens out of it.

 

Wow. Seems like there is a likely chance of screwing it up. I definitely would go the lens route. It would be nice to see some pictures of the tabs. I am also OCD when it comes to scratching things.

Sent from my iPhone using NAMotoring

 

Does the clubman in EU have the reverse light on opposite side of US ? If so how about that part number or getting them for us ?

 

The two things sticking out in back.

Reach under the bumper and squeeze the tabs towards the center while pushing the lamp out. It will be obvious when you obtain the replacement lamp and look at it.