LED Fog Lights?

I have HIDs on my Prius and find the fog lamps fairly useless. If the color match is that objectionable, I'd say go for it, but I'd probably spend my mod money on other things (like that skid plate - a good thing for a NH winter! I have to save my pennies.)

 

any body know where to get the brackets with the grill knockouts to install the fog lights? I have a package 2 and it's my single regret... no fog lights

 

Call it vain but I just want the look! I want my car to just be a red streak...

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/21S44M72SJL._SL400_.jpg

 

it is a 12 led fog light that with fit and I was wondering if anyone has tried these before and if so are they that bright.

That the listing does not state an actual lumen output suggests they are hiding something. Looking at the emitter board I see twelve emitters with no radiator/heat sink. If they consumed even one watt/emitter they'd burn out in a day or two from overheating. Since they have a one year warranty they must be low power emitters. (Note also in the listing where it says: "Low power consumption, super cool which will not damage your stock harness nor housing.")

they are about the same price as say the Silver stars but I think they might be pretty neat.

I beileve that one silverstar would produce more light than four of these. These are OK for marker lamps, but you couldn't drive by them.

 

[email protected] Call it vain but I just want the look!

At 6,000 K they will be a bluish white. I thought the stock HIDs were warmer than that?

 

Stocks are ~4300k if I'm not mistaken. That is about as white as it can get without falling over into the blueish spectrum, but even then the 4300k's can look blue depending upon the angle viewed.

As others have stated those LED's will give off little if any usable light on the road...they will however better match the HID's. Also, cheap LED's have a very blueish tone to them.

Going against what I have preached in the past here, but some who have done this mod to their Pri have had good results and time will tell. I have done a HID retro to a previous vehicle with excellent results....but I went the full gamut with projectors, OEM Philips 85122 4300k bulbs, high quality 100% potted Matsushita ballasts and ignitors, and most importantly a wire harness so as to not "butch" my OEM wiring. The guys that I worked with do these retro's for a living.

I have no idea if you want to spend this kind of money and get into a mod like this, but this is what I would suggest...$160 shipped...This kit is plug and play and has a lower power draw upon HID startup then traditional OEM HID systems. I'm not sure of the resulting glare that could come from this mod in the Pri foglight reflectors and the possible damage to your OEM wiring, but that's the risk you might take imo. DIGITAL HID kit - store - retrosolutions Choose 9006 and 4300K to match your headlights. I've ordered quite a bit from them and they have provided good support. Lifetime warranty on the kit and you can bet they will put out some serious light on the road. My disclaimer : this is an illegal mod in my state. Good luck!

 

I installed a Pilot 9006 4300K HID kit into my factory foglights and am very pleased with the result. True HID fogs.
Cost me about $180 and perhaps 45 minutes start to finish.
I got them from Tracy Wu at Formula 1 Spec., 480 Collins Ave., Unit E, Colma, CA 94014, 650.757.4868; 415.668.8136 fax; emails to [email protected]
Good luck, and no, I have no affiliation with them.

 

I find myself in early morning fog a lot and so I got a quote from my dealer to install fog lights on my #2 package for $402 plus labor. He revealed that the Prius comes prewired for the fogs, but the price included a new turn signal arm with the fog light switch, relay, lamps, and bulbs. Didn't seem to mention if I'd need different front grill pieces.

From the above posts, I wonder about the effectiveness of the stock lights, and am considering whether it's worth it to have the dealer do the tricky stuff, and just replace the bulbs with better ones, or if there's a better way.

 

Keep me posted on how your progress on this... i'm really looking forward to doing this... if it works out well

 

Hey I'm interested in do this mod too but don't really want to be paying out mod money to the dealer. Please be sure to keep us all informed of your progress.

Thanks

 

I think I will get my dealer to put in the hardware, minus the bulbs, and try those HID's I hear tell of. I'll post updates- once I've saved up enough to do it.

 

Here's my update:

After talking to the parts manager at my Toyota dealership, I decided to have them install foglights with the silver star bulbs on my 2008 package 2. He said Toyotas came pre-wired for foglights; they just had to install the lights themself, the "on" switch (part of the turn signal arm), and in the case of the Prius, the 2 grill pieces with holes for the lights.

The parts came to $408, and labor would be $251. All of the parts arrived quickly, except the "on" switch that came from Japan, which took two weeks.

I took it in this morning, and after a few hours wait, the parts manager broke the bad news to me that there was no wiring harnass for the foglights after all. He seemed genuinely surprised, apparently they hadn't done this before as he had thought. He offered to try to rig a harnass, perhaps use a Scion one as a starting point, but I pointed out that the reason I went ahead with this was so that it would be just like the factory install, thus assuring nothing wacky would happen to my rather high tech rolling computer of a car. They were all apologetic (by this point my sevice consultant found out all wasn't going as planned). They completely refunded my money on the parts (I had to pay for them before they'd order them). They had taken off the bumper cover looking for the wire harnass, and seem to have done a good job at putting it back on.

So it looks like if you bought a Prius without the foglights, you'll have to do a bit of a custom wiring job, which I wasn't willing to let my dealer try. I suppose if you're braver than I, you could order the parts and put them in yourself and it would look factory. Maybe with some more research, you'd find that there actually is a wiring harnass that'll plug right in.

If that sounds like a fun project to you, here are the part numbers and desciption, for your convenience:

81211-52070 LAMP UNIT, FOG LA
81221-52070 LAMP UNIT, FOG LA
84140-48200 SWITCH ASSY, HEAD
53112-47030 GRILLE, RADIATOR
53113-47030 GRILLE, RADIATOR
90080-87026 RELAY

...plus whatever bulbs you want to put in.

As for me, it sounds like more trouble than it's worth. No hard feeling with my dealer since it didn't cost me anything but my time. I'm a little disappointed that they don't know exactly what can and can't be done to my car. Having always worked on my own cars, this was my trial run at letting someone else under the hood, and my already fragile confidence has been shaken a little.

I hopes this helps if you are contemplating adding foglights.

-Kevin

 

The OP's original Ebay link is dead but the seller frequently lists more of the same product:

eBay Motors: JDM Xenon White 9006 HB4 LED City DRL Fog Light Bulbs (item 380021675130 end time May-02-08 19:00:00 PDT)

How many lumens? Don't know. PC does have it's own resident LED expert. Perhaps he'll read the thread & weigh in on the brightness issue.

Go to "EVNUT"s page and see his LED Fog Light mod.