US to EU rear fog light conversion

[Tilo]

After much reading, I choose a more straightforward and cheap solution from what I’ve seen so far in all the threads about this conversion.

I connected a wire to the front fog lights connector on the power distributor and ran it from the power distributor to the rear left taillight connector. Removed the reverse wire pin and inserted the front fog light wire pin.

I also don’t like to see the red circle on the left taillight and white on the right side. Prefer the symmetry of the taillights so kept the whites on both sides and installed a red led bulb for the fog.

This turned out perfect for me, on a budget and no coding work done.

Pros:
Factory look
No need to replace headlight switch or circuit board
No need to replace taillights
No coding
No errors
No messing around with original wiring
Cheap hardware (wire, pin connector, led bulb, cloth tape)
Reversible (swap bulb from red to white and pins on the taillight connector to change between fog and reversing light)

Cons:
Depending on how perfectionist you are, running a new wire from the power distributor to the taillight using the original wiring route means disassembling almost all of the interior.

 

[elfer]

Presumably you're in the US, in which case you don't need to worry about legal requirements? On our side of the pond, we have to have a rear fog tell-tale lit in the dash whenever the rear fog is lit, separate and distinct from any front fog tell tale. (They're also always amber not green, but I don't know off-hand if that's a stipulated requirement or just convention). It's checked at our annual roadworthiness inspections.

Also, here, a rear fog is only for seriously reduced visibility, like 100 yards or less, and you should ideally turn them off when someone behind has caught you up and is following you. They're for when you're alone or tail end Charlie in really thick fog. Front fogs you'd leave on in those situations to help see through the fog in front, especially if you're the lead car. That's why we have separate buttons for front and rear.

But, again, in the US anything seems to go so congrats on an easy mod

 

[Tilo]

I’m from Europe and live in Europe, so fog lights have been part of my life for as long as I can remember.

As far as I’m aware, there’s no specific color or symbol required in the instrument cluster for the rear fog light. My Volvo doesn’t have one either, not even for the driving lights.

I’ve installed an M front bumper, which doesn’t have front fog lights. As a result, the fog light switch now only activates the rear fog light.

At the ITV, there were no issues with the fog light. However, they did raise a problem with the xenon headlights: my car doesn’t have headlight washers, which are required in Europe, and the position lights can’t be yellow only, as they are on US-spec cars. As a result, I had to change the headlights.

In any case, the ITV is now done and passed.