Fog Light overide?

So my issue here is I wired my new fogs into the existing harness from the old one (I like the stick on the wheel) now is there a way to overide then so they don't shut off when I turn on my brights? It bugs me I can't use the nice lights then the brights are on lol

bottobro said:

So my issue here is I wired my new fogs into the existing harness from the old one (I like the stick on the wheel) now is there a way to overide then so they don't shut off when I turn on my brights? It bugs me I can't use the nice lights then the brights are on lol

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United States Title 49 Code of Federal Regulations; Chapter 5, section 571.108. Supposedly its not legal to do so, however it can be done.

TheFauxFox said:

United States Title 49 Code of Federal Regulations; Chapter 5, section 571.108. Supposedly its not legal to do so, however it can be done.

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Yea i knew it wasn't legal. Neither is lights above the windshield or tires sticking out past the fender walls lol

You have to do a hack-n-tap on one of the other wires in the steering column. There's a writeup here somewhere. Lemme see if I can find it.

awesome thanks dude, i looked briefly but came up empty

I can't find it either. Hrmm. Which sucks because I've been meaning to do this.

Essentially the fog light circuit doesn't have power unless the headlight circuit does. So you tap the fog light circuit into the parking light circuit.

I guess it's time to bust out the FSM and dig through the wiring schematics.

Prime said:

I can't find it either. Hrmm. Which sucks because I've been meaning to do this.

Essentially the fog light circuit doesn't have power unless the headlight circuit does. So you tap the fog light circuit into the parking light circuit.

I guess it's time to bust out the FSM and dig through the wiring schematics.

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If I could get a schematic I bet I could figure it out

We used to have a write up here on it, but I keep getting a 404 Error on the link..

Fine. Give me an hour...

Quick rundown on the fog lamp override...

The Headlamp stalk switches power into a relay coil, and the other side of the coil is run through the Fog Lamp switch to ground. The major issue is the output of the stalk is the same feed to the left head light. The relay for the fogs is in the engine compartment, and you need to break the connection to the coil, but keep the run to the headlight. Unfortunately, this is as far as I can guide you right now, as I am several hundred miles away from my X for the next 18 days. If someone wants to be a little brave, you'll need to do the following:

Remove red wire with the black stripe from the relay. Find a fused source of 12V (either batt or some other switched version) and place that where the Red/black wire was. Test the lights, and bypass complete -- Fog lamps will come on no matter the headlight setting (off, on or highs)


Edit: Wow. 59 minutes after the previous post. Totally didn't plan that either.

Exactly 59 minutes later hahaha. Resident wiring guru....and he's prompt!!

Isn't the 00-01 different than the 02-04 for fog wiring?

The connector on the column with the Red-Black wire you need to cut.


I triggered it off the parking lamp circuit, so I tapped it off the Blue-Red here:




And tie the connector end of the cut wire into the Blue-Red. Just leave more wire than I did....I made a mistake when I cut it and thought I was using the other end...so I did extend it before connecting them.

And this is what I couldn't tell from the schematic. I knew the signal went to two places from the stalk, but I didn't know if they were two wires from the stalk, or if they were split at the relay or what.

okkk I think I need to look at the wiring for myself the pictures were a bit confusing

Well I'm glad I'm not the only one that questioned the diagram.

As much as it's illegal, I just find it weird that it's speficically to have your fogs on with your highbeams. I really don't see an issue with that, and one shouldn't have to worry too much about the legality, cause you shouldn't be driving with your highbeams on towards oncoming traffic, so even if that oncoming car is a cop, you would of turned off your highs anyway. And cop or not, and your driving towards a car with your highs+fogs, what will be running through their minds is "damn that's bright you SOB!" and probably look low-right like we were taught in driving school, and not even bother to specifically notice that you have your fogs on at the same time. It's a law that I'm sure the average populus doesn't know because they don't have any concern for it, because their car does it automatically. As for the cops, they probably don't even think about it either because of such a low chance of a percentage of vehicles that would of been modified/installed like this that it doesn't even cross their minds,, never mind the fact that you should have your highs off crossing another car. Would I be wrong to say that for out of 100'000 or even 1'000'000 vehicles on the road with OEM fogs, that 1 would be modified in this way. It would be more likely for those who put in aftermarklet lights and have them wired up to a a generic switch or something.

If you live in a good area, if your driving on a back country road and you have ALL your lights and roof lights on to see in some pitch black night, and you cross another car (not knowing it was a cop) and you turn them all off right away, I doubt they would at all give you a hard time and stop you for the fact that you were considerate and aware.

I love having the highbeams light up far while the fogs fills the gap, especially in the snow.

Well its dot law. No more than 4 foward facing lights equal to 1 candle hour or something like that but yea I get what you are saying

Technically, in some states, such as OK, it is actually illegal to have fogs on at all without hazardous conditions. But who's counting?

Just busted out the 02 FSM.



This is the fog lamp circuit. As you can see, Nd4SpdSe is correct about the wire colors. The R/B (Red stripe on Blue) is the feed to the fog relay.

Now if we take a look at the parking lamp circuit,



I'm assuming that the wire color is lime stripe on red (L/R) is the output of the parking lamp circuit. If you tap the blue/red wire into that, voila!

Now. If you wanted to stay DOT legal, you could wire in a DPST relay behind the fog lamps that when the idle leg is connected, the fogs would have power with the parking lights. However. Connect the second input leg of the relay to the high beams so that when you trigger them it would break the circuit to the fog lights.

TheFauxFox said:

Technically, in some states, such as OK, it is actually illegal to have fogs on at all without hazardous conditions. But who's counting?

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Wow! I doubt the state is making too much off that law..

Prime said:

Now. If you wanted to stay DOT legal, you could wire in a DPST relay behind the fog lamps that when the idle leg is connected, the fogs would have power with the parking lights. However. Connect the second input leg of the relay to the high beams so that when you trigger them it would break the circuit to the fog lights.

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Well in reality, although good for information purposes, defeats the point of the mod to do the mod, so that you have your fogs on with your highs. It's ironic cause your defeating the OEM limitation, and putting it back in, except you now have fogs with parking lights now, which is weird, and could I say almost useless? Fogs with no headlights, or fogs with DRL's, depending on the country/state your in....

I agree. I merely offered it as a solution to those that live in an area where the govt gives them a hard time about such things.

We have to pass annual inspections here. And a mod like this would make it fail. This allows for a passing inspection while being easily remedied the other 364 days of the year.

Prime said:

We have to pass annual inspections here. And a mod like this would make it fail. This allows for a passing inspection while being easily remedied the other 364 days of the year.

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Oh ****, that sucks! Oh, in that case, I can totally see the merit of going this way. A quick fix and a quick undo for those inspections.