Afternarket Fog Lights for a MK4 Jetta

I can't seem to find any ideas and or similar ideas. The snow is coming soon and high beam white lights just creates what looks like a mirror within the snow. Does anybody have a "bull bar" or front license plate mount with one large or two smaller amber lens HO LED's? I am concerned a 20 plus inch "bull bar" will make my car look dumb, or just a wannabe rally car. Prices and wattage's/lumens are all over the place, and any or maybe all suggestions would be welcome. Thanks in advance, Nevada.

The problem goes a lot further than just getting a bull bar and hanging MORE lights on. The stock lighting on the front of a US market MkIV are worse than zero for fog, but ESPECIALLY snow. Even the factory "fog lights" are in the wrong place, and US DOT (FMVSS) forces those truly horrible headlights to be on when they need to be off. Not sure about US in 2001, but I think you are lucky enough not to have DRL, though.

To be able to see anything in snow, you need lights that put nothing up from a horizontal line and next to nothing down. US DOT headlights scatter a LOT of light upward, and reflect a lot off of the snow on the ground. THAT is what illuminates the snow between your eyes and what you want to see.

The entry level solution is to put a relay in the headlight low beam line that turns them OFF when the fog lights go on, and use the Hella H1 fogs that were at one time available for the lower outer grille positions. Problem with that is those lights aren't that easy to aim and don't have enough intensity. I could not find that kit anywhere, so the only thing with decent pattern that will fit in such a small space is the Hella Micro DE projector fog lights (you can get them from Susquehanna Motorsports...www.rallylights.com). The HID version (about a grand) are actually pretty good. Be careful: just because a light say "fog light" does not mean it is. In fact, maybe 2% of the offerings actually have the right pattern (essentially a horizontal line 5 degrees max veritical spread, and usually about 160 horizontal spread.) Also, just because a light has a brand name or a big price tag, does NOT mean it has decent pattern. Shine any potential light on the wall in a dimly lit area. If 100% of the light isn't in a horizontal line as above, just walk away. Any light outside of the band is what will give you horrible visibility in snow.

A second option is to simply install some E-code headlights. Their cutoff is extremely sharp, and they are a lot better than US stuff, but they are NOT fog lights, as a LOT of the light is going downward and will bounce back up off of the snow.

Also, when driving at night, but ESPECIALLY in snow, turn your dash lights down to their lowest possible setting - and for crying out loud DO NOT put any other lighted things on the dash - guages, nav, phone, etc. Night vision is all about contrast (thus why the usual plea for more "foreground lighting" will get a lot of people killed.

http://forums.tdiclub.com/showthread.php?t=275342&highlight=fog


http://forums.tdiclub.com/showthread.php?t=341400&highlight=fog


http://forums.tdiclub.com/showthread.php?t=393481&highlight=lights


http://forums.tdiclub.com/showthread.php?t=420011&highlight=light


http://forums.tdiclub.com/showthread.php?t=403142&highlight=light


http://forums.tdiclub.com/showthread.php?t=393875&highlight=fog


A search will reveal more threads. HTH.

I picked up this, but haven't installed it yet ... and won't see much snow here


http://forums.tdiclub.com/showthread.php?t=492637

Pat Dolan said:

The problem goes a lot further than just getting a bull bar and hanging MORE lights on. The stock lighting on the front of a US market MkIV are worse than zero for fog, but ESPECIALLY snow. Even the factory "fog lights" are in the wrong place, and US DOT (FMVSS) forces those truly horrible headlights to be on when they need to be off. Not sure about US in 2001, but I think you are lucky enough not to have DRL, though.

To be able to see anything in snow, you need lights that put nothing up from a horizontal line and next to nothing down. US DOT headlights scatter a LOT of light upward, and reflect a lot off of the snow on the ground. THAT is what illuminates the snow between your eyes and what you want to see.

The entry level solution is to put a relay in the headlight low beam line that turns them OFF when the fog lights go on, and use the Hella H1 fogs that were at one time available for the lower outer grille positions. Problem with that is those lights aren't that easy to aim and don't have enough intensity. I could not find that kit anywhere, so the only thing with decent pattern that will fit in such a small space is the Hella Micro DE projector fog lights (you can get them from Susquehanna Motorsports...www.rallylights.com). The HID version (about a grand) are actually pretty good. Be careful: just because a light say "fog light" does not mean it is. In fact, maybe 2% of the offerings actually have the right pattern (essentially a horizontal line 5 degrees max veritical spread, and usually about 160 horizontal spread.) Also, just because a light has a brand name or a big price tag, does NOT mean it has decent pattern. Shine any potential light on the wall in a dimly lit area. If 100% of the light isn't in a horizontal line as above, just walk away. Any light outside of the band is what will give you horrible visibility in snow.

A second option is to simply install some E-code headlights. Their cutoff is extremely sharp, and they are a lot better than US stuff, but they are NOT fog lights, as a LOT of the light is going downward and will bounce back up off of the snow.

Also, when driving at night, but ESPECIALLY in snow, turn your dash lights down to their lowest possible setting - and for crying out loud DO NOT put any other lighted things on the dash - guages, nav, phone, etc. Night vision is all about contrast (thus why the usual plea for more "foreground lighting" will get a lot of people killed.

Click to expand...

DOT FMVSS did not mandate DRLs back then. GM was one pushing hard to make them mandatory. VW decided to make DRL's mandatory on their vehicles.

It's really VW's fault for allowing Hella to produce such a crappy headlight for the Jetta. The Golf ones were decent enough. Many of the Japanese cars that use H4 bulbs did produce an e-code like pattern that did pass FMVSS requirements.

The aftermarket Hella options... the Golf version was a fog light, which was a H3 MicroDE fog light (not H1). The Jetta version was not a fog light, it had a driving light beam pattern, which were also HID. People incorrectly assumed it was a fog light because it was mounted low. The Hella grilles at that time did say it was not for the TDI, 1.8T, or VR6, as grilles where closed off, preventing airflow to the SMIC (TDI & 1.8T) or auxiliary radiator (VR6). The passenger side grille had to be modified to allow airflow to the SMIC.

The factory fogs were fine, the only problem was the beam pattern was not as wide as the aftermarket MicroDE foglight assembly, which was considerably longer. It did have the fluted projector lens like the aftermarket MicroDE, which did its best to widen the beam pattern. It was decent enough to be used in the snow, especially when Osram offered the All-season bulb at that time (in H3 form).

Blue: glad you mentioned the H4 lights from Asia with US DoT pattern. Yes, they are considerably better than what VW supplied from Hella for MkIV, but in reality, almost EVERYTHING sold into the US market as far as lighting goes is total garbage and is in no way capable in snow (IMHO, by far the most difficult lighting condition). There are some projectors that do not all into that "garbage" category, I should mention.

The factory "fogs" for MkIV are simply mounted too high and in a housing with too many reflective surfaces to work properly - and as I had mentioned: fogs require Zero other forward lighting to be on - or the whole purpose is defeated (in difficult situations - such as snow).

Pat Dolan said:

Blue: glad you mentioned the H4 lights from Asia with US DoT pattern. Yes, they are considerably better than what VW supplied from Hella for MkIV, but in reality, almost EVERYTHING sold into the US market as far as lighting goes is total garbage and is in no way capable in snow (IMHO, by far the most difficult lighting condition). There are some projectors that do not all into that "garbage" category, I should mention.

The factory "fogs" for MkIV are simply mounted too high and in a housing with too many reflective surfaces to work properly - and as I had mentioned: fogs require Zero other forward lighting to be on - or the whole purpose is defeated (in difficult situations - such as snow).

Click to expand...

The US MK4 Golf wasn't that bad in the fog, or in the snow. Driven though many blizzards with the stock MK4 headlights with no issues. I also had S2000 projectors in my MK4 housing... with the stock fog lights. Again no issues with the fog light performance in the blizzard.

Running fogs only without any lighting is pointless, because if you wired up the fog lights to be fully independent, you lose visibility of yourself, so you risk getting rear ended. But that's why you wire it to a Euroswitch so that you can run the fogs with the position lights.

20IndigoBlue02 said:

But that's why you wire it to a Euroswitch so that you can run the fogs with the position lights.

Click to expand...

You will note I said no FORWARD lighting...but for MkIV I do use the Euro switch. In my trucks, I have to get more creative.

BTW: until you have driven a pair of correct pattern, correct mount and correctly aimed fogs you can not appreciate just how much different (and better) it is than trying to "share" illumination with other sources. You won't go back.