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Subaru fog lamp switch wiring

I have a 98 Outback sport (Imprezza) and recently after a long (4 day) journey to a small town I decided to get a quick fluid and tyre service and have some fog lights installed. Needless to say the fog lights worked fine, but the switch was a real cheapy with no on light that they 'hid' under the dashboard. After returning home I decided to install a proper Subaru fog lamp switch. The only problem is that it came in a small box with no wiring instructions. I am able to get it to work properly (ie switch light and bulb come on) in the house using a small

9v battery, but, when I try it in the car I can't get the switch light to come on but the fog lights come on ok. Or, conversly I can get the switch light to come on but not the fog lights. Anyone come across this problem before or have any ideas? Please, it's so damn frustrating. The switch has 6 leads and I found the following works in the house; top left to ground top right to positive bottom right to fog lamp (which is also grounded) Thanks in anticipation. William.
Reply to
William MacDouglas
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Assumming the installed fog lights are factory items, what you really need to do is get the factory wiring harness between the lights and switch. The 6 terminals is a tip off this is a complex wiring harness.

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johninKY

Reply to
William MacDouglas

I'm afraid that your frustration may continue; the OEM wiring isn't simple. There is a fog light relay, and IIRC, that is tied in with the hi/lo beam selector such that the fogs are only on with the lo beams . . . And we really don't know how the Sears guys wired your fogs, but Subaru does all of the switching in the "ground" side of the circuit, and their switch is designed to work with this arrangement. As such, the OEM switch may not be the way to go. RadioShack has a selection of illuminated switches that can be mounted in one of the blanks on the dash. These are designed to do just what you want; one terminal goes to the battery, one to ground, and the "switched" terminal goes to the load, the fogs, or fog relay in this case. The internal lamp is connected between the switched terminal and the ground terminal so that when the switch is "ON", the internal lamp is powered. I have an '02 WRX service manual available on my server at

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If you wish to D/L the wiringsection (~5MB .pdf file), it shows the fog light wiring _and_ switchlayout. If that's more'n you want, email me directly, and I'll sendyou just the page with the fogs, but that's still not gonna help youmuch if the installer has used the more traditional wiring schemeoutlined above. Hope this helps a bit.

ByeBye! S. Steve Jernigan KG0MB Laboratory Manager Microelectronics Research University of Colorado (719) 262-3101

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S

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William MacDouglas

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