Fog Light Recommendations

[JMSinMD]

My 2008 Toyota Sequoia has 9145 bulbs standard, they were never anything to write home about. I recently found out that Rigid Industries has a conversion kit for the Toyota Tundra which allows you to place a D series where the fog light goes. I'm coming to this forum for advice as to which would be the best light for a fog light application, D2 Driving, D2 Wide or D2 Diffused?

http://www.rigidinduѕtrieѕ.com/v/imageѕ/lux/d2drivinglux.png
http://www.rigidinduѕtrieѕ.com/v/imageѕ/lux/d2widelux.png
http://www.rigidinduѕtrieѕ.com/v/imageѕ/lux/d2diffuѕionlux.png


Image tags removed see Rule #3 Do not Hot Link images. Please host on an image site, Imageshack or similar and repost – Thanks Norm

 

[-Virgil-]

Fog lamps are essentially useless for most drivers. See old thread here
and there's an article elsewhere here. All three of the Rigid lights you mention are "driving" lamps, just some with wider/shorter and some with narrower/longer beam distribution. None of them are fog lamps. "Driving" lamps are additional high beams, not fog lamps, nor is it safe or effective (or legal) to use them in the same conditions as fog lamps (i.e., you can't use "driving" lamps in traffic or in bad weather). And furthermore, "driving" lamps are most effective when mounted at or near the height of the vehicle's main headlamps, not down below in the fog lamp location. Are you really sure this is what you want to do?

 

[JMSinMD]

All three of the Rigid lights you mention are "driving" lamps, just some with wider/shorter and some with narrower/longer beam distribution. None of them are fog lamps. "Driving" lamps are additional high beams, not fog lamps, nor is it safe or effective (or legal) to use them in the same conditions as fog lamps (i.e., you can't use "driving" lamps in traffic or in bad weather).

What differentiates a driving lamp from a fog lamp? Looking at the output from the D2 diffusion there is a lot of light up close and wide, better for low speed driving vs. a spot pattern.

 

[-Virgil-]

It's not just a matter of beam width, though a good fog lamp does produce a wide beam. A fog lamp has a sharp cutoff line (dark above, bright below) at the top of the beam pattern, and produces very minimal amounts of "stray" light thrown upward above this cutoff line. In the bad weather conditions where fog lamps are warranted, upward stray light would light up the fog, rain, or snow and cause backglare for the driver, making it harder to see forward instead of easier. A "driving" lamp is a high beam lamp; it has no cutoff and no limit on upward light. This makes it unsuitable for use in bad weather (or traffic), no matter how wide it might be or how you might aim it.

Also, a current marketing fad is the offering of colored covers to snap onto the lamp. These are claimed to "convert" or "optimize" the lamp for use in various conditions. It's not true. Not only is it the beam pattern (not the light color) that determines a fog lamp from a "driving" lamp, but most of the color claims themselves are baseless. The only one that's not is the use of selective yellow light for fog and foul weather; there's a referenced article here.

 

[JMSinMD]

It's not just a matter of beam width, though a good fog lamp does produce a wide beam. A fog lamp has a sharp cutoff line (dark above, bright below) at the top of the beam pattern, and produces very minimal amounts of "stray" light thrown upward above this cutoff line. In the bad weather conditions where fog lamps are warranted, upward stray light would light up the fog, rain, or snow and cause backglare for the driver, making it harder to see forward instead of easier. A "driving" lamp is a high beam lamp; it has no cutoff and no limit on upward light. This makes it unsuitable for use in bad weather (or traffic), no matter how wide it might be or how you might aim it.

It seems as if an HID projector would better meet the criteria of a good fog light compared to a halogen fog light, no?
http://www.cuѕtоmlightz.cоm/fileѕ/iѕ300d.jpg

 

[Alaric Darconville]

It seems as if an HID projector would better meet the criteria of a good fog light compared to a halogen fog light, no?

No.

Unless the HID projector were *specifically* designed to produce a fog lamp beam pattern-- but there are none, to my knowledge. Sure, there are companies that "retrofit" projectors into other vehicles, but despite their clever names for styles like "lo'-kee", and despite using a Z instead of an S in plurals, they're not producing anything worth putting on your car. You can't just cram a projector in somewhere and claim it's a specific type of lamp producing a specific beam pattern.

 

[-Virgil-]

It seems as if an HID projector would better meet the criteria of a good fog light

No, actually there are no legitimate HID fog lamps, and "HID kits" (any/all of them) in halogen lamps (any of them) are illegal and unsafe, and the products at the site you linked (amongst other sites like it) are virtually all likewise neither legitimate, nor safe or legal for just about any purposes. The "retrofitting" idea those sites promote is itself neither legal nor safe.

What is it that you are trying to achieve?

 

[Hamilton Felix]

There may be some pretty decent true fog lights that will fit into that Toyota's openings. But good fogs are never cheap. And they are only good for heavy fog or snow. I had been thinking of swapping my series 95 Cibie Booster Beam aux low beams to series 95I yellow fogs in winter. But I may follow the suggestion to just leave them in. The Starr HID projector headlights in that car have a "Z-beam" pattern low with very sharp cutoff. In short, those low beams are well suited to fog. And I think the Booster Beams are helpful in light to moderate intermittent fog.

 

[Farcry1010]

There may be some pretty decent true fog lights that will fit into that Toyota's openings. But good fogs are never cheap. And they are only good for heavy fog or snow. I had been thinking of swapping my series 95 Cibie Booster Beam aux low beams to series 95I yellow fogs in winter. But I may follow the suggestion to just leave them in. The Starr HID projector headlights in that car have a "Z-beam" pattern low with very sharp cutoff. In short, those low beams are well suited to fog. And I think the Booster Beams are helpful in light to moderate intermittent fog.

there are true dot driving lights and are HID they will have a good cutoff and would work in fog just keep stock 4300k or lower but if you want a true dot fog light they make a micro de fog which uses an H3 bulb

 

[-Virgil-]

there are true dot driving lights and are HID Hella Micro DE Xenon they will have a good cutoff and would work in fog just keep stock 4300k or lower

That's wrong. The Hella Micro DE Xenon does not have any cutoff at all. Like all "driving" lamps (auxiliary high beams) it is unsuitable, unsafe, and illegal for use in bad weather.

 

[irsa76]

There may be some pretty decent true fog lights that will fit into that Toyota's openings. But good fogs are never cheap. And they are only good for heavy fog or snow. I had been thinking of swapping my series 95 Cibie Booster Beam aux low beams to series 95I yellow fogs in winter. But I may follow the suggestion to just leave them in. The Starr HID projector headlights in that car have a "Z-beam" pattern low with very sharp cutoff. In short, those low beams are well suited to fog. And I think the Booster Beams are helpful in light to moderate intermittent fog.

Unless the lights are properly designed fog lights, then they NOT as effective, and are in fact a hindrance in fog/snow/heavy rain. My Citroen has a low beam pattern that is very wide and with the level control can be set quiet low, almost as low as a fog light beam, however they are absolutely useless in even moderate fog/heavy rain. In contrast my mismatched foglights, long story, ARE fairly effective when the conditions warrant them, although will be replaced with my Micro DE fogs in the next few weeks.

 

[irsa76]

there are true dot driving lights and are HID they will have a good cutoff and would work in fog just keep stock 4300k or lower but if you want a true dot fog light they make a micro de fog which uses an H3 bulb

Wrong, the standards for driving lights and fog lights are completely different. Just the beam pattern means anything other then a correctly designed fog light is useless in fog/snow/rain. HID can in fact be dangerous in those conditions, hence why NO ONE makes an HID fog light.
Your example of the Micro DE is flawed as Hella has mislabeled the Xenon version DE, it is NOT a projector light while the similar looking but totally different foglight is a projector, with a fluted inner lens.