Subaru Has the Fog Lights Wrong

I don't think this is an unusual setup. My 1999 OBW has the same setup. Fords have had this setup for years. Probably other makes.

Sorry about the broken link. The state of California database only has a temporary URL for each search that expires in minutes. Just click on "Vehicle Code" and type "24403" into the search field and search.

What crap. The whole point of fog lights is that they illuminate from underneath. This reduces the backscatter from the fog. Haveing the headlights on reduces the benefit of the fog lights. They also should be yellow.

Al

I don't know about yours' but all the fog lamps I've seen point down at an angle. I'm not sure what you mean by "underneath".

There are some people putting in those "bluish" bulbs like Sylvania Silverstar, Cool Blue, etc in their fog lamp assemblies. That's got to be really stupid since blue light causes far more backscatter in fog.

Ah, Americans must have the fog-light-always-on disease for the fogs to be set up like that. We get the odd fog down under, but they tend to be either very light or very thick where I live, nothing in between. Perfectly clear to solid wall of fog in less time than it takes to swear and hit the brakes some days.

Course, because we don't get them that often, it's safer to wait and get to work late than it is to chance the dickheads doing 140kph on an 80kph road in *solid* fog. None slow down. Most turn on high beams / driving lamps at night, thinking that a visible beam of light must be a good thing, none realising they cut your vision in half.

-mark

It's hard to imagine fog worse than I experienced in California. I recall walking to school in San Jose and tripping over a curb because I couldn't see the ground... and I was only 4 feet tall. It took forever but there was no way I could ride my bike in that stuff.

Mike

The Aussie version (imported from Japan) allows the fog lights to be switched on as long as the parking (side lights) are on. Don't have to have headlights on.

phil

It would not surprise me to find that NY has the same kind of law. Most V&T law here is written by folks from NYC where driving is a rare thing. Many, if not most, residents never get a license. Most of the politicans get chauffers because it cheaper than providing parking.

;-)

Spent three years in Germany, almost ten in Monterey county...never saw anything in Cali that came close.

Look at it this way...ever heard of a *rear* foglamp?

They're either standard, or a very common option on European market vehicles. I bought a couple and mounted em on my vehicles while I was over there, after seeing they were visible long after the other tail lamps faded away.

IIRC, the European vehicles could run parking/fog lites, w/o regular head lamps.

Don't know about other models but the "foglights" on my '05OBW are useless and purely for cosmetic - i.e. sales blurb - purposes. They don't throw any low concentrated beam forward at road level like real foglights should, so it really doesn't matter how and when one can switch them on.

Great observation. So it is NOT that the Japanese don't understand how fog lights are supposed to work, it's some bonehead rule in the U.S. or some bonehead marketing ploy. Crikey...why can't we leave them the way the Japanese made them. Sigh. Bob

What you are saying is wrong. This back reflection only occurs if you're using high beams, not low beams. The low beams are purposefully designed to point downwards for precisely this and other reasons. The other reason is that you don't want your low beams blinding oncoming traffic either. Now I don't know if your have a misaligned headlamp where the low beams point straight out instead of angled down; if you do, then you better get the headlights realigned.

Yousuf Khan

Yousuf. I d> It sounds like the complaint is that it is not possible to have the fogs on

Happy driving, bob

Largo - fabulous. Thanks for the info and the pics. bob

Whether or not you think it should work that way, here is the way it works here. In NB Canada, where we have fog, fog, and fog (one year, we had 67 days in a row with no sun)....the rule is fog lights can ONLY be used with low beam headlights. Not on their own; not with high beams. Driving lights can only be used with high beams. Not on their own, not with low beams.

You think you know fog? You haven't lived here.

Could you please repost that message with the info & pics. I didn't see it come across the news server I have to use. Thanks

My driving experience in fog comes from my driving experience in falling snow. Over here you can run into snow squalls that are like walls of white. where you have a tough time seeing to the front of your hood, let alone ahead on the road. I have experienced the reflection back towards me when the high beams are on, but not with the low beams.

Besides, I don't really consider these lights to be fog lights, they're white lights, twenty years ago, you'd call these "driving lights". Fog lights were the yellow ones. As far as I'm concerned all these Subaru lights are there for is to fill out the lighting immediately in front of the bumper and towards the nearest sides.

I gotta wonder how the HID headlights fair in the fog?

Yousuf Khan

Fog lamps are defined more by the pattern of the beam than the colour of the lens.

I'll agree though, the factory ones aren't particularly good examples of anything.