Fog lights

the picture you posted shows the fog lights on but the headlights off... so the wiring must be different...

I would think that the fog lights would be called 'parking lights', when the cop wrote you the ticket.. last drivers license books I read were in California and Georgia... back when driving tests were given and you could get away with multi licenses....I haven't taken one in 25 years.. at that time the law was parking lights were not to be used as/ or in place of head lights..

that said I'd love to be able to have them on all the time... I leave my head lights on all the time... think the Prius is neat in that when the drivers door is opened the lights go off... think it's a safty thing to have them on..

Bob Andersen

 

Well, I had the displeasure of driving in heavy fog today. I tried the fog lights, and they blow chunks. The amount of light reflected from the fog INCREASED with the fog lights on, and I had to turn them off to see better.

When driving in normal dark conditions, they only light up the road right in front of the car, and do nothing to help see down the road, so they do not function as "driving lights" either.

I have only found them helpful during or after a rain in the dark - they help light up the road when the headlight beams get lost on the wet road.

I guess there is a possibility that mine may be misaligned????

 

Sounds like they could be. Id get them checked.

 

Doesn't using the fog lights (and headlights during daytime driving) reduce the battery and thus reduce mileage?

That's what I heard.

 

I haven't noticed anything going on with the battery... only have 1300 miles on my Prius and have had the lights on about 98% of those miles... I'm always in the blue on the battery chart and am averaging 53.7 mpg... coming from a 1995 Dodge Dakota Club Cab @ 15 mpg... I LOVE MY PRIUS !!!!!

 

20 Minutes to replace 2004 Fog Light Bulbs
A friend of mine just went to Wal Mart and bought Sylvania Silver Star 9006 ST/2 bulbs and replaced his factory fog light bulbs. These bulbs are almost HID bright and they light up the road better (still not great). Specs for bulbs are 4000K temp, 51W (same as factory bulbs) and 1000 Lumens. The info below is for information only. Read at your own risk.

Fog Light bulb replacement Procedure: Wear Eye Protection
1- Directly if front of each front wheel is a horizontal plastic panel extended to the front bumper. Remove the one 10mm screw-nut from the front bumper and the next screw closer to the tire. Both of these screws are facing directly down.
2-"Peel" down this panel from the front bumper so you can just reach your hand up inside (behind the fog light).
3-Reach up to the back of the fog light and squeeze the connector. Apply pressure to middle of the connector, FROM THE ENGINE SIDE, at the bottom of the connector. This will release the the plastic latch and with a GENTLE downward force will undo the wires from the bulb. Do NOT force anything or you will break plastic somewhere.
4-Grab the back plastic of the bulb and gently rotate it about 45 degrees toward the center of the car. It only turns one way. The bulb is now loose and can be backed out of the fog lamp reflector.
5-Reverse steps 4 to 1 with new fog lamp bulb. NEVER touch or soil a Halogen bulb.
When tightening the step 1 10mm screws be very gentle. I have seen a Phillips screw driver used for final torquing so there wasn't any stripped plastic.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(200Volts\";p=\"51907)</div>

Did it look like the lens could be easily replaced? If so the suggestion that foglights are yelllow could be tested or at least it's another way to customize. There's gonna be 3 Salsa's in the parking lot at work now.

 

havent seen a decrease in battery nor a decrease in mpg with fog lights on...given the load of these lights are minimal.
lights really dont do that much for lighting, will be replacing them...so thanks for the procedure above...

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(bruceha_2000\";p=\"42513)</div>

Rear fog lights? Must be a European thing. I don't think my car has anything other than normal rear lights.[/b][/quote]

Many EU market cars, especially upscale Saloons and Utes, have rear driving lights, which are high-intensity red lights. Given the higher speeds on autoroutes, and the higher traffic density, they probably help prevent some rear-end accidents. They are illegal in North America, as they would be easily confused for brake application, and may only be used by snow plow operators (MNDOT, UDOT, private operators, etc). Likewise, DOT laws in the United States are strict about the number of front lights (No more than 4), and that "fog" lights can only be used with low-beam (In EU, "dipped" lights) headlights. If you install high-intensity driving lights, they must remain covered for highway driving, as they are strictly "off road" use. I used Hella driving lights on my old pickup, which had a push bar on the front bumper, throughout North West Ontario with no problems, and they really help avoid deer and moose at night. At the first glimmer of headlights, I would turn them off. Supposedly, they are also illegal in Canada, but I never had any issues from the police. My Canadian market 2004 Prius has DRL, which has been the law in Canada since 1990. I'm not sure if they help all that much, everybody gets used to the lights and ignore traffic anyway. What next? Install Whelen strobes in the headlight housing?? It shows how inattentive drivers have become.

 

Whelen strobes! now there's my next Mod. I used to use 4537 GE aircraft landing lights on my vehicles until the add cost of "leagl protection" made them to expensive. Nothing like 100watts lighting your way. Makes HID look like candles.

 

as a kid I had a pair of landing lights as backup lights on on my 48 Ford pickup.. they would light in a flat position then swing down to point to the back... made believers out of the BRIGHT light in your mirror folks... that with the spark plugs that were in the stacks, that could put a burst of fire made that truck be a one of a kind.. and a lot of fun at night..

Bob Andersen

 

As others have pointed out the fog lights are to me disapointing on the Prius. I have stock fog lights on my Ford Explorer and they can be on without the headlights on (just the parking lights on). This is how they should be designed - the purpose of fog lights is to be low to the ground so they don't light up the fog at head level, which makes visibility worse in fog. Too bad Toyota implemented them this way - basically useless - to be of any use one should be able to turn them on with parking lights (but not headlights) on.

Al

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Frank Hudon\";p=\"51955)</div>

I've noticed school busses here have a white strobe on top of the roof. Now that the days are much shorter, I find it REALLY annoying seeing all these flashing white strobes on top of ugly yellow school busses. It's enough to make you want to run through the red school bus lights on purpose. Within 10 years we'll see every car equipped like the NASCAR pace car, with strobes flickering in every operating light housing. That's when we'll know the Apocalypse has arrived GRRRR. Seriously, the "fog" lights on most vehicles are purely for show, you might as well leave them off.

 

Fog lights are a major asset. Too many people insist on driving at high velocity, regardless of conditions. The Great Central Valley of California, famous for Tule (radiation) ground fogs, has several multiple-car pile ups every winter. The number of cars (mixed with tractor-trailer trucks) in a pile-up can add up to 50, 100, 150 to 200 at a time. One major collision on I-5 in the mid-1990s involved 500 vehicles and agricultural dust (Coriolis effect blowing dust from fields onto the Interstate)

What is really amazing is the news media blames these accidents on the fog, not driver behavior. Anything that extends vision at high speed can enable an alert driver to slow down and avoid a collision. Fog lights are also an asset in winter mountain snow driving, where you want light directed at the ground, not reflected back in your eyes.

 

Sure, a "real" fog light made by Hella, Bosch, PIAA, etc is a Godsend in those sort of driving conditions. The crap that comes on most vehicles from the factory isn't even worth turning on. they're purely ornamental. Whatever you do, don't pay for Factory Option "fog" lights! You brought up a good point about driver behavior, in that there is no such thing as an "accident." An "accident" implies something like Act Of God, when in the vast majority of cases the driver is to blame, either by driving like a bloody idiot, or driving too fast for conditions to allow.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(efusco\";p=\"42174)</div>

I did a little unscientific testing last night with the prius and the side of a building. What I found was that the fog lights seem to fill in a little bit of space close to the car, but that seems to be entirely due to the fact that they're mounted lower.

They do look cool. One of my coworkers said the combination of the faux fog lights and the HID headlights made the car look like a spaceship.

 

"HAL, open the pod bay doors."

"I'm sorry Dave, I can't do that ..."

That's what I'm expecting to hear the next time my Red Triangle Of Doom turns on!

:lol:

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(jayman\";p=\"52503)</div>

Actually it would be something like...

"HAL, open the pod bay doors"

"System is now displaying seafood icons"

"Wonderful"