View Poll Results: thoughts on fog lights?
they make a car look more sporty
21
53.85%
I need them to see in crappy weather
13
33.33%
not needed at all
3
7.69%
they are useless even if the car has them
2
5.13%
don't care
5
12.82%
Multiple Choice Poll. Voters: 39. You may not vote on this poll
Fog lights....your opinion
01-25-13, 02:27 PM
#17
Pole Position
01-25-13, 11:38 PM
#21
Lexus Test Driver
The addition of LED headlights/DRL's up front has made fogs somewhat redundant. Rather have this new high tech headlighting from the factory, rather than fog lights using old technology.
01-25-13, 11:51 PM
#22
Fog lights just make the front more visually appealing, IMO. Nighttime, it really adds a little more visibility on the roads, and, though I understand why they aren't initially installed, I can see more and more people wanting it simply because they've been used to it being standard for so long.
01-26-13, 01:32 AM
#24
They look good on cars designed for them, ie that GS350 looks cheesy without foglights because the bumper was designed to include them. Although if you design the lower bumper piece right, you don't really need fog lights.
Also, I find the "cornering light" to be much more useful than the foglight. My 92 SC300 has "cornering lights". They look like fog lights in the lower bumper, but they stay off until you turn on the turn signal. The bulb is aimed to project to the side of the car, and it lights up the entire left/right side of the car, very useful when turning on a dark back road, because the normal headlights don't illuminate the side/corner of the car. I had three Cadillacs with this same type of light, very useful on dark roads. New cars don't seem to have this feature AT ALL, which is quite sad.
Also, I find the "cornering light" to be much more useful than the foglight. My 92 SC300 has "cornering lights". They look like fog lights in the lower bumper, but they stay off until you turn on the turn signal. The bulb is aimed to project to the side of the car, and it lights up the entire left/right side of the car, very useful when turning on a dark back road, because the normal headlights don't illuminate the side/corner of the car. I had three Cadillacs with this same type of light, very useful on dark roads. New cars don't seem to have this feature AT ALL, which is quite sad.
01-26-13, 08:40 AM
#26
Out of Warranty
US lighting specs (49 CFR 571.108 - Standard No. 108; Lamps, reflective devices, and associated equipment. Use "find" {Ctrl-F} on the page for "fog") limit the performance of fog lights to something near-useless for improving vision (not visibility) in a fog.
Factory fogs and most aftermarket lights conform to the 49 CFR spec which is legal in all states. If you want serious fog lights, have a look at "offroad" spec lights that don't have to comply. They don't have to be flamethrowers to work well in fog, but they do need to be something more than decoration.
I had a single 7" Hella fog lamp on our motorhome years ago that probably should have gotten me arrested, but it DID work as advertised, providing excellent illumination in fog, particularly at night, when the factory low-beams were near useless. It delivered a brilliant spread beam with a sharp vertical cut-off that didn't blind oncoming drivers. It might not have had a long throw in fog, but nothing really does. Yes, it was ugly, mounted below the bumper, to the right, but it had a companion, separately-controlled "driving light" on the left that fired a 650 cp beam (about 10X legal power) straight down the center of the lane. OK, it couldn't be used in traffic, but it was invaluable for lighting objects on a deserted road well before you got there.
Until you've driven a bus, truck, or motorhome - even many tall pickups with US-legal lighting on a dark road at night, you don't know how inadequate our US-legal headlights are, especially when mounted high. With an eye-line something like eight feet above the roadway, you can see maybe a couple-hundred feet down the road in a light fog. Your low beams, thanks to that high mounting, end up throwing two puddles of light - the left lamp focused about 50' in front of you, the right, straight down the right shoulder, where it's useless. Standards for low-slung passenger cars don't work for trucks. I'd usually creep home from the inspection station every year and re-set the headlights using my garage door as a reference. I was always careful about maintaining my alignment and never had anyone flash their lights at me, but I could see!
Factory fogs and most aftermarket lights conform to the 49 CFR spec which is legal in all states. If you want serious fog lights, have a look at "offroad" spec lights that don't have to comply. They don't have to be flamethrowers to work well in fog, but they do need to be something more than decoration.
I had a single 7" Hella fog lamp on our motorhome years ago that probably should have gotten me arrested, but it DID work as advertised, providing excellent illumination in fog, particularly at night, when the factory low-beams were near useless. It delivered a brilliant spread beam with a sharp vertical cut-off that didn't blind oncoming drivers. It might not have had a long throw in fog, but nothing really does. Yes, it was ugly, mounted below the bumper, to the right, but it had a companion, separately-controlled "driving light" on the left that fired a 650 cp beam (about 10X legal power) straight down the center of the lane. OK, it couldn't be used in traffic, but it was invaluable for lighting objects on a deserted road well before you got there.
Until you've driven a bus, truck, or motorhome - even many tall pickups with US-legal lighting on a dark road at night, you don't know how inadequate our US-legal headlights are, especially when mounted high. With an eye-line something like eight feet above the roadway, you can see maybe a couple-hundred feet down the road in a light fog. Your low beams, thanks to that high mounting, end up throwing two puddles of light - the left lamp focused about 50' in front of you, the right, straight down the right shoulder, where it's useless. Standards for low-slung passenger cars don't work for trucks. I'd usually creep home from the inspection station every year and re-set the headlights using my garage door as a reference. I was always careful about maintaining my alignment and never had anyone flash their lights at me, but I could see!
01-26-13, 08:44 AM
#27
Lexus Fanatic
There are reasons, Bob, why some types of lights are illegal, espcially mounted at certain heights. They may indeed help a driver to see better, but that does little or no good if they blind (or potentially blind) oncoming drivers.
01-26-13, 09:50 AM
#29
Lexus Test Driver
