Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General Troubleshooting Short fog light life normal???

Why do my fog light bulbs only last about 6-7 months? Is this normal for such a small halogen bulb?

Some background on my situation. Stock SVT fog lights, just about always on with headlights, and "fog light switch mod." (done before I purchased the car, so I assume its done right)

I had to replace both fog light assemblies, each a couple months apart, because somehow the bulbs melted the assembly. Maybe the previous owner put the wrong bulbs in mine, but since then I have had one bulb burn out under normal circumstances as well.

I have been good now for aobut 6 months I think.

Make sure you don't touch the bulbs at all when u are putting them in. The oil on your hands can cause them to burn out faster.

Given that you are running the fog lights all the time, I would certainly expect them to fail within that sort of time range.

Run the 25W bulbs; some folks (myself included) have had issues with the 50W bulbs. The higher wattage bulbs will most likely melt the plastic lens on the fog light.

Don't know if it was a wiring harness issue or not but running lower-wattage bulbs ( I could almost swear these were 25W) fixed a problem that one of the guys had in the past, IIRC. This was on a stock foglight setup as well.

using a lower wattage bulb could very well solve the problem



I have a replacement light right in front of me, a 893 which is what the book calls for and it is 38 watts, the optional bulb is 894 I think or 994, something like that anyway

I have a '98 E1 CSVT and I've had to replace the foglamps on both sides three times in 5 years. They are always on while driving and no modifications have been made to the wiring. The current of foglamps have lasted for about 15 months now. I always replace them with the same type of lamp. I don't want to melt my lenses as others have by using a higher wattage lamp.

I tried the 50 watt bulbs and ended up with deformed lenses. I was needing a new bulb every 3-4 months for awhile but my last set of 893s (38w) has lasted over 6 months. I figured Sylvania put out a batch of bad bulbs. Leaky foglamps has been mentioned in several older posts, so this is a semi-common problem with our fogs. Oh yeah, I have the fogs-as-DRL mod installed. (With the relay and 18 wires...)

Why in the hell would you want your fogs on all the time anyways I'd have that re-wired in a hurry!

FWIW, I replaced my fog lights with the 50W bulbs over 3 years ago. I run them at night and sometimes during the dawn/dusk hours (fog light mod) and have never had one burn out or do any damage to the lens or housing material. I do try to avoid using them in hot weather, or daylight hours.