Fitting fog lights....easy?

[Veron781]

Hi,

Has anyone fitted fog lights to their MINI's themselves (the fog lights in the bottom of the front bumper...not the spots)?

Were they easy to fit?

Ideas, help, suggestions greatly appreciated


Many thanks in advance,



Veronica

[Widgey]

Veronica,
Respect due for the DIY route. Think you have to remove both front wheels, take out the wheel arch liners, remove foglamp blanking covers & then fit foglamps. Why don't you get your local dealer to do it?

[MICKEY]

have a look at this thread,

http://www.mini2.com/forum/first-generation-mini-exterior/70070-removal-front-indicator-fog-lights.html

Don't know if you'll have the wiring if your fitting them for the first time.

Regards

Mick

[LordOfTheFlies]

I was at Prestige MIni in NJ here in the states and they could *NOT* for the life of them figure out how to install the fog lights on this particular car they were working on. For some reason the wiring was all messed up.

If a reknown dealer (which I think of highly of personally as they are the only exclusively-Mini dealer here in the tri-state area as far as I know of) has trouble installing them, I would suggest not doing it yourself.

I wouldn't do the fogs myself and I've done a TON of other things to my car.........

[vagt6]

Installing auxilliary lamps is not a difficult project, and of course depends on your skill level and experience.

If you install them, be sure to use correct wiring and relays on each lamp circuit. Complete wiring looms for fog/driving lamps are available at lots of retail outlets.

My dealer's price for the '05 MCS driving lamps is RIDICULOUS at $650 U.S. Such a price is good motivation for installing them yourself.

Good luck, let us know how it goes.

[LordOfTheFlies]

Quote: Originally Posted by vagt6

Installing auxilliary lamps is not a difficult project, and of course depends on your skill level and experience.

If you install them, be sure to use correct wiring and relays on each lamp circuit. Complete wiring looms for fog/driving lamps are available at lots of retail outlets.

My dealer's price for the '05 MCS driving lamps is RIDICULOUS at $650 U.S. Such a price is good motivation for installing them yourself.

Good luck, let us know how it goes.

I believe he is talking about the fog lights that are integrated into the bumper, not the driving lights that you install on the grill of the hood.

Again, I do not recommend that you install it yourself.

[vagt6]

Right, sorry about the driving lamp reference!

[Hank195]

I recently added a set of fog lights on my 03 MC. I got the fog light kit from Classic Mini for about $150. The kit includes the fog lights, wiring harness, relay & fuse, new switch panel and some replacement clips and cable ties. Instructions are not included but can be found on the web. http://motoringfile.com/howto/Fog%20Lights.PDF According to the instructions this is a 2 hour installation. I found it took me about twice that long but I took my time and did it in two parts; the under the hood work one day and then the under dash work a couple of days later. There is no need to remove the bumper, the fog lights go in from behind after the wheel well liner is removed you also need the liner out to run the wires to the fog lights. A numbers of the wires get installed into existing plugs in the fuse block and body control module so you need to be a bit careful to get the correct pin locations. Running the wiring through the firewall was also a bit of a fiddle but there is a provision in the existing molded rubber boot where the main harness goes through for additional wiring.
This is good bit more challenging than changing oil or brake pads but probably no harder that installing a new radio head unit and speakers. The install kit has everything you need and it all fits. You can get a feel for what is involved by reading the instructions.
My car goes in for programing next week so we will see if it all works soon.

Updated - car went to the dealer today for programing and everything works great. At first the dealer thought that the front fogs should work without programing, but agreed to try programing the front and rears; afterward both worked OK. I'm happy with the results and would do it again. The price for the kit seems reasonable and the new switch panel included the rear fog switch, no wiring required, only programing is needed to enable this feature (not a normal option for this side of the pond).

Hank