When I was at the dealer doing a test drive I noticed something interesting about the front fog lights. The lamp assembly contains to separate lights. In the the press photos the top part of the lamp is on with the headlights but the bottom part is not lit.

So to you R56 owners, go look what is this.

Is the top 1/4 of the lamp the park lights and the bottom 3/4 the fogs? Is it a two stage system for functioning in tandem with low/hi-beams?

I'm just curious.

 

They're a two part light assembly; the top section is the running light, and the bottom majority is the Fog light.

The running lights will illuminate when you click your light stalk to the 1st position. The Fog lights can be turned on in conjunction with just running lights, or also if you have low-beam headlights on. The Fog lights will switch off if you turn your high beams on, as U.S. lighting laws say you can only have 4 "driving lights" on at any given time. With the bi-xenon's, I'm not sure if that's applicable since the xenon is just one light per side that refocuses its beam.

 

Lighting laws vary by state, for better or worse. Some say auxiliary driving lights must be covered when they're on the street, for example. Others used to say that you couldn't drive with just the parking lights on, but when DRLs became common, many mfrs implemented it by just turning on the parking lights. MINI's implemented it by turning on front parking lights and low-beams.