so,
I have the stock fog lights and in the directions it says to hook these up by splicing into the wire harness that feeds to one of the headlight bulbs. Instead of doing that i put and adapter on the end of the wire and attached it to the battery. this gives me total control over when i want the fog lights to be on vs. only coming on when the headlights are on.

the problem,
I sometimes to forget to turn them off until i walk out in front of the car. the main thing i want to do is make the fog lights come off when the headlights come off. but i want to be able to just have the center parking lights on and fog lights on.

so could i just splice this wire into one of the wires for that center/headlight bulb? or is it not a strong enought current for power?

 

damn i guess no one has any answers. no biggie!

 

you'll have to get a relay. some more expensive fog light kits have the relay and harness, but some don't. for about $10 you can get a kit that has the wiring harness, pushbutton switch with an LED, and a relay. that's your best bet. connect the relay's coil ground to a good ground, and the trigger (coil positive) to the parking lights. connect the common contacts to the battery's (+) terminal, and the remaining to the fog lights. there will be instructions for wiring the relay. don't take the power for the parking lights through a switch to the fog lights cos you will overload the circuit, blow the fuse, and pose a fire hazard. the relay is an electromagnetic switch, just like the starter solenoid. when the parking lights are on, a coil pulls a set of contacts down that can handle a much larger amount of current. that makes the connection between the battery and fog lights. most fog light relays can handle 30 amps.

it's really easy. if I confused you, I can spell it out or even draw a little diagram and scan it and send it to you. but your best bet is to get the kit that has the harness, pushbutton LED switch, and relay. that's everything you'll need. it can be done. and actually, I had my fog lights wired through a relay into the parking lights like you're gonna do. but I had to change it for state inspection cos the law requires fog lights to come on with low beams and go off with the hi beams.

Hope this helps. let me know if you have any more questions.

Dan

 

So it would be a bad idea to wire them up to the parking lights instead of the main headlight. hmmm.

also just a general question, how come your sig. don't show up with every post and how do you get the sig field boxed to stay checked so i don't have to check it everytime i post?

 

yeah I DEFINIETELY wouldn't run fog lights directly off the headlight OR parking light circuit without a relay. you will overload the circuit. it's bad enough the current for the headlights goes through the steering column switch instead of a relay. if you try to draw another 15 amps through that already overloaded headlight switch, you will probably have problems. you CAN do it though with a relay switch without any danger of overloading and starting a fire. I'm doing it on my sentra and haven't had a problem. it's how the factory would do it. I'd be happy to walk you through it.

come to think of it, my max already had the factory switch and wiring in place for fog lights. there was a switch on the dash near the defogger switch. there was a purple wire under the hood running from the battery to the switch, and a harness from the switch to under the hood. do you have anything like that?

Dan

 

dan,
I bought the factory fog lights from the dealer with the factory harness. When i installed it following the directions it said it wanted me to run that purple wire you speak of to the one of the headlight harness wires (splice into one of them). I bleieve this will allow the fog lights to only come on when the switch is in the one position and the headlights are turned on.

however I want to turn my fogs on when i only had the parking lights on(two center lights on in the main headlight housing). So i ran the purple wire to the battery. but in turn this only allows the fogs to stay on as long as the switch is turned on.

I would like to hook the fogs up so that they turn on when the parking lights come on. Of course they would stay on when the main headlight was on as well. anyway i am sure te relay is there as it is the factory harness. I am just unsure if splicing that purple wire into one of the parking light wires would not be enough juice to run the fog lights.

 

yes, you can take that purple wire and splice it into the parking light wire, cos it should only be powering the relay coil. just find the wiring harness for those parking lights and find out which one is the positive wire. but you should have a separate connection somewhere going to the battery right? should go from the battery to the relay, and then one from the relay to the fog lights?

Dan

 

yeah there is a red colored wire going to the battery as well. i will try to set it up like this on sunday night. thanks for the help

 

i havent seen a car withe the stock foglights yet....i am hoping to find one in a yard but i never do.....guess it want a popular option

 

goodluck. they are hard to find but they look great. I bought mine brand new from the dealer about 5 years ago. I bought the whole kit including the wiring harness and i remember it being pretty spendy. I used to have some aftermarket ones but really i think stock looks the best. However they look better with either the stock front air damn or a body kit that amkes the fog lights recessed into the bumper. Otherwise without those things I think they kind of make the car look like it has buck teeth or something like that.

 

did the stockers just kinda bolt into place and did you have to deal with the wiring much at all?

 

I'm not sure what you re talking about "stockers"?