after doing much searching on what do about my burned out fog light i bought Xenon White H3 55watt bulbs today and popped them in..

first one in and tested lights. it worked and hardly looked any brighter than the other stock bulb, btw.. put in second, tested and both lights were out..

here's what i checked:

fuse in panel next to steering wheel
related fuses in box near battery
reinstalled and checked the Xenon's..

i'm stumped.. the whole point of getting the 55's instead of 100's was so that i wouldn't be in this position now having blown something!

if it's a relay or fuseable link, i have no idea which one.. it doesn't seem like a bad ground to me..

Oh come on..

Up..

Ummm, I assume you've tried putting the original bulb back in to see if it worked?

Sorry for the lame attempt at helping. I feel shame.

Grab that voltmeter and get checking! Is there juice to the bulbs?

Andy we going to see you in Providence this year?

oh, how did you check the fuses?

that happened to me once and it turned out to be the foglight switch......hope that doesnt happen to you....30 bucks for a switch is a biatch!

given that both lights went out i assumed something had blown. i'll putz around with it more tonight and try to get a juice read.

i checked the fuses by pulling them out and looking at them. 1 next to steering wheel and a few related in the box to the right of the battery when standing in front of the engine..

my fog light switch still lights up if that means anything.. probably not..

Erik i'm thinking about Providence this year..

Just be carefull fuses don't always show you if they are blown just by looking. Ther are sneaky ones. Once while working on a traffic cabinet I chased a problem for a couple of hours almost rewiring the thing until I put a meter across a fuse that "couldn't be bad". It looked fine! Just the VERY edge was blown. Made me feel pretty silly. :o

I'd pull the bulbs out and check for voltage in the connectors. If you've got voltage there check your bulbs for continuity. If the bulbs have continuity then shut the fog light switch off and check the ground wires terminals in the light connectors. If your bulbs were good and your ground was good but you didn't get voltage at the connectors, then I'd double check both your 15A fuses for the fog lamps. Just check both sides of the fuse for voltage while the switch is on. If one side doesn't have voltage then your fuse is bad. If those check out, have someone turn the fog lamp switch on and off while you listen to the relay in the engine compartment. If you don't hear any clicking then your relay may be bad, if you do hear clicking, that doesn't necessarily mean the relay isn't bad. If the relay doesn't click check the following before you rule it out. You'll have to double check for your year, but in my '93, the wire coming from the relay to the lights is blue with a green stripe. This wire changes to a orange with a black stripe at a connector before it gets to the light. This wire will have voltage present when the light switch and the fog lamp switch are on. If this wire has voltage, then somewhere between the relay and the lights there is a break in the wiring. If it does have voltage, then check the red with a yellow stripe wire at the relay. If this one doesn't have voltage then your column switch is the problem. If there is voltage, then check the green with an orange stripe wire from the relay for continuity to ground. (Please do so while the light switches are off, otherwise you'll blow the fuse in your meter) If there isn't continuity, then the relay isn't grounding, hence why your lights don't work. This green/orange wire is the trigger wire from your dash mounted fog lamp switch. It should ground when the switches are on. If not then your fog lamp switch may be bad, assuming the column switch checked out ok and the other relay wires checked out with the exception of that blue with a green stripe. The relay is bad if when both your column and dash light swtiches are on and the orange wire has voltage, the red/yellow has voltage, the green/orange is grounded and the blue green still doesn't have voltage. There is no fusible link used for the fog lamps. Good luck.

P.S. I like how Andy felt the need to post the (Searched) disclaimer in his thread subject. No doubt in fear of the Gestapo, wouldn't want the Search Nazis to come 'rond asking, "Vher ahr your papers? You need Search papers!"

it might be the grounding.. maybe the bulbs arent making good contact with the foglights. if you notice the metal part of the bulb is supposed to be making contact with the metal part of the fog light fixture in the back. i think youll know what i mean when you look in the back.. make sure that that little hing that holds the bulb in place is working properly and making a secure and tight fit.

Thanks guys, especially Toolapcfan for that thoughtful electrical rundown.. my (searched) disclaimer was to further signify my credibility in order avoid my thread being ignored..

anyway i found the problem! after reading more from the se-r.net achives this afternoon i saw somebody mentioned a fuse in a 1x1.5 inch black box by the + battery terminal.. i figured he meant one of the other "marked" fuse boxes on either side of the battery.. now i know what he was talking about after looking under the hood today.. right where he said, it looks like a wiring harness, not even a box, but black a little smaller than he said.. i pulled it apart and found a blown 15amp fuse.. stuck in a 20amp and it blew too.. i didn't have any bigger fuses to try.

so i put the still good stock bulb back in one fog and one 55w Xenon in the other.. a 15amp fuse works with them..

i have 3 choices if i don't want to live with this hack job car repair..(of course not my first or last one)

1. get some big fuses and play the game
2. bypass that damn fuse so i can always worry about an engine bay fire
3. get some stock bulbs and take back the Xenon's which only cost $12 for both..

"Ummm, I assume you've tried putting the original bulb back in to see if it worked?"

Even a blind squirrel gets a nut sometimes...

Just kidding. I tried using 100w bulbs in mine and went through them like socks. I went back to the 55w bulbs and have been fine ever since. After that last set of 100w bulbs the wiring in the fog light was starting to burn anyway- I figured it was a good time to switch.

Glad you figured it out andy. This mysterious black box you speak of, is it the plastic job where the battery terminal connects to the battery? Or is it further down in the wiring just off of that? Now I'm intrigued, wondering if my car has that and if it does, why I didn't see it in my FSM when I was trying to figure out your problem. I'll go out and look.

If I were you I'd go back to stock bulbs, even if they hadn't blown the fuse, I'd be concerned about putting higher wattage bulbs in there, simply because they skimp on wiring as it is, and they put in what they get by with using to operate the OEM bulbs. If you want to go bigger, I'd suggest getting an aftermarket setup that is designed to run bulbs of the desired wattage. Then use the OEM wire to operate a relay with a seperate fused wire straight off the battery. Then you'd have no reason to worry about a fire.

yeah it's right near the + terminal. actually runs right off it and it's located an inch or 2 from it.. it's black, looks like a connecter. you'd never guess there's a fuse in there..

Lance i guess you were sorta right.. i wish my car could handle the 55w.. she must be a little too conservative for them.. so i guess the dream of 100watt ice cool blues will never be realized.. you know you had those Lance..

I went out last night and checked, and both my SE-R and my XE have that fuse holder right off the battery. I found it in my FSM and they call it a fusible link, like those in the fuse box, but you have to know what you're looking at in the picture to know that's what it is because it doesn't show it as being hooked up to the battery. It just floats in mid air with all the other electrical connectors in the picture. ;) They did their best though. I just wish Nissan hadn't folded the wire over on itself, because the insulation is all cracked and the wire is exposed, and is conveniently located right under the throttle cable bracket that is on the MAF, nice place for it to ground out on if the MAF housing is grounded that is. So I'm going to have to pull the connectors apart and solder in a new wire. I could electrical tape it for now, but I know if I do that, I'll leave it alone and won't go back to it. :)

[i]I could electrical tape it for now, but I know if I do that, I'll leave it alone and won't go back to it. :) [/B]


NOBODY would do that would they?!?? :D