Fog lights again.. 2 quick question.

On a slightly tangential topic, how difficult is it to rewire the fog lights on an NB so that they can be turned on w/o the headlights? Preferably in a way such that they can only be on when the ignition is on?

Yes.

Very simple, remove the wire from the low beams to the fog light relay and replace it with a wire to an ignition lead.

It's possibly illegal, new cars come with the fog lights wired to the low beams to comply with rules in various jurisdictions and with federal laws so check the regs where you are.

Yes, I believe it is.

Yup, but wiring foglights that way also makes them 100% usless.

Fog lights are indended for use when the backscatter from even the lowbeams is a problem. Requiring that the lowbeams be on defeats the purpose of foglights.

I'm asking because when I pull in/out of my garage/driveway, my lowbeams shine directly into the neighbor's bedroom windows from about 8ft away. The parking lights don't really provide enough light to navigate past various obsticles, so I'd like to be able to use just the foglights in situations like that.

Who knows, with the lowbeams off, the foglights might actually be useful in fog too...

Since I am still somewhat confused about the whole relay issue.. as in where is it..

I took a look and I figured out that the image I just shot and that is linked to below must be the fog light relay on my 2000. If someone could take a look at it and just confirm that for me I would greatly appreciate it. This was OEM as far as I know.

As far as bypassing the relay, I litteraly have been driving back and forth to NJ from Florida every 10 days or so and I don't want to have to talk to anymore policemen at anytime ever in my life again.

I've searched for a replacment on-line and haven't found it using the whole part number.

If you feel like it, my image site (from my trips up and down the east coast) is

Dunno about the Miata foglights, but the standard ones on my Mazda3 are worthless bling. They aren't powerful enough to illuminate the road 50 feet ahead, even if it were possible to aim them that high. Sometimes I discover they've gotten turned on by accident, and the only way to tell from inside the car is by looking at the switch. At least I didn't have to pay extra for them.

Well having finally got mine working today, I concur. I carry a Maglite in the trunk that is brighter. BUT the exercise for me was to finally start working on the car myself.. to find the info and solve the problem... and in the end anyone with half a brain could have figured it out in about 10 minutes... which also has me wondering why the local guy who up until now has been changing my oil and doing the minor stuff that I will now do.. why he just didn't swap out the fog light relay instead of charging me for 2 hours diagnostic that resulted in the lights still now working.