So after about 6.5 years (ok, closer to 7) and 138K miles - one of my fog lights has burned out.

Maybe I should go to the dealer and rant and rave and demand that they fix it under warranty?

No - seriously, my question is about the bulb size. The Sylvania site says H11. The Bentley manual says H7, but the picture in their manual clearly shows an H11. The owners manual says H11. The Haynes manual says that early cars use an H7 and later cars use an H11 - but they dont say when the change happened.

My car was built 09/2002 - one of the first of the '03s. I'd like to order the bulbs (I'm going to replace them both) so that I only have to do this once. So the idea of taking off the front wheel well liner just to check the bulb size isn't all that appealing...

So does anyone know when they stopped using H7's and switched to H11's?

 

For the longest time I thought my 02' has H7. One day I pull out the wheel wells for some other work, out of curiosity I checked the fogs and they are H11!!

Take a look at them before buying the replacements, or will the dealership be able to look it up on the system with the VIN?

 

In either case bulbs should be replaced in pairs, just keep that in mind. What is the difference between the H7 and H11 anyway? Is the power/color of the bulb different? Or is the plug different?

 

My ETK shows the H7 "standard" bulb(63 21 7 160 780) and "longlife" bulb(63 21 7 160 781) up to 06/2002...
...and the H11 "longlife" bulb(63 21 7 160 784) from 06/2002 and later.

Hope that helps.

 

That's a HUGE help Partsman! Thanks - I can order the H11's with confidence now and only have to take this apart once...