tmckenna

To give a little background for those who don't know. I got my 2014 Cayenne Turbo S in October of 2019. Less than 2 months into ownership I decided I was going to do a "full headlight overhaul". I'm very particular about light colors and uniformity so I replaced pretty much every bulb to something higher performance and cooler in color. When I say every bulb I mean every bulb IE. low beam projector bulb, high beam reflector bulbs (LED), and even the cornering lights (which is all detailed in my "Full Headlight Overhaul" thread)

In the interest of uniformity I wanted to upgrade the fog lights to something close to the hue of all my new bulbs. Along my journey through the vast interwebs I found the Morimoto Projector Fog Light upgrades that replace the entire reflector and housing for a projector setup. To me that sounded like the best option considering in the majority of applications projectors perform better than reflectors, especially when LEDs are utilized. My thoughts however, were incorrect because when I mentioned the purchase of the morimoto replacements in my original thread I had multiple members comment regarding the poor performance of this specific product.

Now I'm not usually one to believe every word that I read on the internet so I decided to do some independent research and found that this did seem to be the case with these fog lights. In certain applications, like older pickup trucks, or even newer pickup trucks with base model lighting packages, these were better than the factory fog light setup. But with any higher end car or cars with better than base model lighting packages the performance was basically the same as factory or in some cases actually worse, the only benefit being a cooler hue (or fully yellow hue if you decided to install the yellow film). To me this equivalent performance was not worth the $200 price tag for the Morimoto "upgrade" so I returned them and got my money back.

Fast forward about 6 months from when I did my headlight overhaul (yesterday), I'm sitting in my lab bored to death because COVID drove all of our customers out of their places of work and I have borderline nothing to do. I don't even know what is was but something made me think about the fact that I never did anything to upgrade my fog lights so I go into research overdrive. I spend a couple of hours researching the "scientific" concept and functionality of fog lights and how the color affects them. There's a lot of misinformation out there referencing wavelengths and how certain color light gets refracted differently but the bottom line is that fog and rain droplets are too large to separate wavelengths of light the way some people say that it does when using yellow fogs instead of white. What it really comes down to is the fact that yellow light is softer on your eyes and creates less glare so it is better in snowy conditions, but white light is unfiltered (all LED light starts white, and to become yellow needs to pass through a yellow film or "filter") so it will technically be brighter (marginally) and penetrate further through dense fog and rain.

Now, after hours of research, I had a good idea of the pros and cons of each color light in a fog light application. Next came more hours of research deciding which color light would better suit my needs, and to be honest, which color I generally just preferred aesthetically. I was back and forth a million times before I remembered that bulbfacts.com , which was the site that I used to pick the bulbs for my headlight overhaul, had mentioned an LED setup that could switch between different hues of lights depending on the drivers preference. The problem was the bulbs that they reviewed on the website were not at all compatible with canbus applications, but this did make me realize that products like this exist. The next step didnt take hours, only about 5 minutes, but I found an LED "conversion" setup that was canbus compatible and allowed the driver to choose between a 6000k hue, cool white which matches all my other bulbs, or 3000k, very yellow hue that gives the benefits of yellow fog lights. The best of both worlds as many say.



Needless to say I purchased them on the spot and installed them this morning. I really love the hypothetical functionality and especially the ability to choose the aesthetic on the fly. I haven't tested them at night yet, and to be honest I didn't use my fog lights much so itll be hard for me to compare the usable light, but considering theyre LEDs with much better light output, and the amazon reviews are overwhelmingly positive, I'm sure they will do great whenever I do decide to use them. Switching colors is also very easy, it happens when the bulbs are on, and you turn them off and back on within .5 seconds. In the cayenne its incredibly easy because all you have to do is push the headlight switch in and pull it back out again, super simple.

Side note: Once again, no decoder or canbus adapter required, and I have no problems with flickering or dash lights for bulbs.

Because I know everyone wants pictures!

LED installed on drivers side (white mode), compared to factory Halogen on passenger side:


LED installed on drivers side (yellow mode), compared to factory Halogen on passenger side:


Close Up of factory Halogen:


Close up of LED (white mode):


Close Up of LED (yellow mode):


Both LEDs installed (white mode):


Both LEDs installed (yellow mode):

RAudi Driver

Hmmm, Please give us an update on the actual light output at night. I like the idea and may have to jump aboard.

tmckenna

I was messing around with the factory setup last night on my drive home, but without fog, rain or snow, the fog light output is completely overpowered by the headlights. At this point Im really just assuming that because theyre newer LEDs compared to old halogen bulbs that theyre going to perform better, but I'll let you know if theres any downsides or points of concern that I notice.

z3mcoupe

I did the Morimoto upgrade....happy with how they look on and off. Mine were badly pitted from road rash so I wanted to change the lens too.

MIK911

Please update with light output follow up incl night time pics.
I got the Morimoto yellow LED fogs but disappointed with light output (similar to stock).

tmckenna

I took some pics the other night to try and show the performance of the new bulbs. Its hard to accurately depict because with everything so dark, and the way that exposure functions on phone cameras it makes all the light sources appear dimmer than they actually are, even the actual headlights. And when you activate another light source (fog lights) it reduces the exposure even further to compensate for the additional light. You can see what I mean by comparing the first and second picture, and looking at the spot where the low beams hit the ivy. The beam looks much less intense in the second picture, because the fog lights are on and the phone automatically reduces the overall brightness of the picture.

Either way, these are the pictures. Im really happy with the performance and especially the ability to alternate color output. Its 100% an upgrade from the stock bulbs, and from what Ive heard, a better option than the morimoto housings (especially with price considered). Id certainly recommend these to anyone.

Only headlights on:


Fog lights on (you can see the wider spread of the flood beam, and more thorough coverage close to the front bumper):


Fog lights but in yellow mode:

tmckenna

Turned the fog lights on while driving around tonight. Theyre certainly brighter than the factory bulbs. Cant really speak to how much brighter they are, or how the beam pattern compares because I dont have a lot of experience using the original fog lights, but the night before I swapped the bulbs i turned the fog lights on and really wasnt sure they were on until i saw the reflection in the bumper of the car in front of me.

Chaos

Great write up, orderd four sets yesterday!

Chaos

How do you install them?

dc1225

Hey guys, I didn't even realize that my 2013 had fog lights until I saw this thread. I have my light setting at auto and it does not turn on the fog lights. How do you turn them on?

dbv1

Pull the light **** out once for the front fogs, once more for the rear fogs. You can't pull the **** while it's in auto lights mode, you got to go one step to the right IIRC.

dc1225

rear fogs too, huh? Ok, thank you

John Young

Rear fogs are the red lights located on the lower rear bumper. Euro cars normally have it for driving in the fog and having the rear lights pierce through the fog. It can be very bright if there is no fog. I use this- lol in very dark areas when I'm backing up. Our stock backup lights suck- so this supplements the output for me. Follow dbv1's info on how to turn those on. The Dash will tell you when front fog, and rear fogs are on. Front fogs are a Green symbol, rear are yellow foglight icons that light up on the dash.

Chaos

Where do you get replacement lenses?

tmckenna

Im not sure if you can replace just the lenses. I believe you have to replace the entire housing if your lenses are beat up enough to justify replacing.