bright idea or mot fail?

[monkeyalan]

My car at present has no fogs at the front and as i rarely drive in the fog i don't need them. my question is, if i were to fit fogs but put the indicator in the fog part then fit sidelights with the correct bulbs in the current indicator would it work and pass an mot?

[Overseer]

only one question.. why?! lol..

depending which indicator housing you're using you may find its orange inside.. therefore.. any bulb you put in there will show as orange...

[monkeyalan]

cos i think it'll look nice when its dark

I plan on getting some crystal fogs so i assume i'd need silvertec type bulbs for the indicators anyway?

cheers

[Overseer]

nah dude.. you're missing a few things...


if you use a 'white' indicator facia.. its likely to have an orange dome inside and take white bulbs.. therefore what you wanna do will come out orange...

also.. the fog assmebly is a nasty + expensive thing.. the indicators are cheap because they're plastic, the fogs are made of glass partly due to the heat they put out, and partly because there are 2 glass magnification parts there there too..


you cant  'swap' them over or anything as they're completely difference sizes...

there isnt enough space to put the fog in the "indicator" hole anyways.. its not deep enough at the end.

an indicator is about 15cm deep...  vw ones cost about 20 quid
a fog is about 35 cm deep..   vw ones cost about 140 quid..


what do you mean by silvertec indicator bulbs?


my car came with stock white vw fogs and indicators.. as you dont have fogs you may find you do or do not have the right wires inside the car to wire some up. some cars without fogs do have the wires coming from the loom.

[monkeyalan]

I don't think i explained myself very well to start with.

What i plan ( if poss), is just to swap the wiring/bulbs, so the indicator bulb is in the fog light and what was the indicator lens would be like a side/driving light.I'm not bothered if it's not effective as a light source, i just want it to light up. If what you say is right and there's an orange lens, even in aftermarket crystal lenses it would make it more difficult but not impossible i don't think.

silvertec bulbs are silver but flash orange.

Now I've written this down it seems like a lot of messing about but hey,

I think I'll put it on hold til i can get a look at some lenses at the Leeds show.

cheers anyway.

[BOGGLE]

I've got the silver indiblinker bulbs on my mk4 and they look great.

If you did go through the effort of doing this it wouldn't fail the mot on the front fogs as they're not compulsary.

Anyway, better get back to the mk4 area

[Overseer]

i did understand...

you want to butcher a fog that costs about 8 times as much as an indicator and turn it into an indicator so u can make an indicator light up clear... and change something that cant take a bulb you want to plug into it into an indicator.

the fog assembly is a big unit its not something u can replace bulbs in..
i know coz i broke mine just trying to fit it properly!!

the aftermarket stuff may not have the orange lens.. however.. to run orange bulbs you have to buy different plugs from VW.. had to do this with my smoked set.

just let me explain.. my car came with stock white/clear fogs with the fogs and indicators all in place..
i changed it all to smoked.

it took 3 attempts get the right indicator bulb housing from vw - in vw speak smoked is dimmed v. important! and lots of hassle sorting fog lights.
 

like i already explained and i shall repeat again in more simple terms

- the fog lights are a different shape to the indicators so u cant swap them position wise

- your car may not even have fog wires to 'swap' in the first place

- fogs use a totally different much bigger and more powerful bulb  so u cant 'swap wires' anyways as the bulbs wont fit..

- fogs dont come apart in the same way as an indicator which is dead simple.  they have a stupid magnifier section hidden behind the main lens they also have  water tight seal here.. i'd already had a set of aftermarket fogs that turned up broken. as a cheaper option i was told u can replace just the front glass piece with smoked. I broke BOTH mine in the EXACT same place as the set that'd turned up broken trying to seperate the front piece from the rear piece..  my advice : dont take apart the fog lights!   eventually i got money back for the broken set that came.. got my money back for the smoked lens fronts i got from vw and had to pay 130 odd quid for a pair of smoked fogs.

- plus fogs are expensive.. you dont even have any yet.. let alone any to mess around with..

one final thing... ANY breaks in the seals here makes your car look sh!t as the lens condensate down there really easily.. bodging the wrong sh!t together is likely to leave this not being air tight

[davero]

bit harsh Overseer, I switched wiring between foglights and indicators on my car, and monkey is right, he can do  what he wants, my question is WHY and what are you doing with the blanks, pretty sure it would be ok for mot

[Overseer]

bit harsh Overseer, I switched wiring between foglights and indicators on my car, and monkey is right, he can do  what he wants, my question is WHY and what are you doing with the blanks, pretty sure it would be ok for mot

so your fogs come on when you indicate? 

[jte]

One option would be to get some mk4 style head lights with indicators in.  I've seen mk3s with this set up.  Then wire the old indicator as a side light, presuming you can find a way to make it clear and not orange.

Should be reasonably simple if you're quite handy with wiring and doesn't involve the complexity and expense of messing about with fog lights plus you get a fancy set of headlights.

Although i suspect the necessary mk4 style headlights are quite pricey.