How to disable the High Beams turning off the fog lights

I can't tell you -how- to do it, only that if you do it is illegal in many jurisdictions. That is why they are turned off by the high beam switch.

 

maybe if you upgraded the fog lights to something better, it would be worth it. but the stock fog lights are crap. it only seems to put out maybe less then a foot of actual light. the fog lights are often reported as pretty useless.

the argument against being useless is that it illuminates the sides a little and other drivers can see you easier.

maybe you can try turning the fog lights into canadian 'always on lights' maybe you could use that as a solution, its just a guess, maybe you can see if that will work

 

how much does it cost to replace the fog lights? are there better bulbs that are more or less plug and play? does it require other parts besides different bulbs?

this is something i might be interested in.

i heard getting access to the fog lights is not easy

 

According to Darell's notes this mod should work. You shouldn't need anything more than about $2 in parts, a phillips screwdriver, maybe some pliers depending on the wire taps you use and to top it all off, some of Darells wonderful instructions:

"This mod will allow the fog lights to be on as long as the parking lights are also on"
Fog lights

Although I've been intending to do this mod ever since he posted it on his site, I never actually got around to it. Maybe I'll do it sometime soon... this has to be one of the single best (easiest) mods as far as cost/benefit goes.

 

I have done this mod and it works great to have the fogs on with only the parking lights, but the fog lights still turn off when the high beams are activated. Anyone have a solution?

 

2 high beams + 2 fogs = 4 lights, how is that illegal?

If the high beams are being used, there should be no cars ahead, so it shouldn't matter how much light is being output.

 

It may also be counter-productive - the fogs just cast extra light on the road directly in front of you, which you don't need to see. That will increase the overall amount of light falling on the eye, causing the pupil to contract, reducing vision of stuff in the distance.

Reference: http://www.danielsternlighting.com/tech/lights/fog_lamps/fog_lamps.html

 

As KMO said, you see further up the road with the fog lights off. What you see in the fog lights is so close to the front of the car that you have already hit it by the time you start to react to it.
I wouldn't fix what ain't broke.

 

The key here is HIGH BEAMS. Some states do not allow the use of fog lights with high beams. The over-four-lights rule is another limitation in some states.

Stop trying to apply logic to laws; you will drive yourself crazy. Of course the real reason that there are limits on high beams is because of bad and inconsiderate drivers who ignore oncoming traffic.

Tom

 

It is not suppose to use the fog light when there is no fog. But most of the people turned it on as auxiliary light. The reason is you should not be turning the high beam on when there is fog, it is logical to turn the fog light off when the high beam is on,

 

I'm not really using them as true fog lights, mostly for better side-of-the-road visibility at night (don't want to hit pedestrians), and for daytime running lights during the day to save life on the factory HIDs. I upgraded the fog light bulbs with a cheap HID kit from eBay so they are now actually useful at night. The only reason I would like to make the fogs stay on with high beams is so that the HID fogs don't get cycled on/off quickly if I have to flash the high beams, which reduces the life of the HID bulbs. The factory high/low beams don't have this problem since the bulb stays on for high or low beams, and only a little shield is moved to switch high/low.

 

Do the fogs really go off if you flash the high beams? I don't think they do.

 

They do on my 2004; not sure about the newer models.

 

Just checked on my 2009 UK Prius - the front foglights don't go off if you flash the main beams; . Maybe the US version is different.