Subaru fog lamp switch wiring

[William MacDouglas]

I have a 98 Outback sport (Imprezza) and recently after a long (4 day)
journey to a small town I decided to get a quick fluid and tyre service
and have some fog lights installed. Needless to say the fog lights
worked fine, but the switch was a real cheapy with no on light that they
'hid' under the dashboard. After returning home I decided to install a
proper Subaru fog lamp switch. The only problem is that it came in a
small box with no wiring instructions. I am able to get it to work
properly (ie switch light and bulb come on) in the house using a small
9v battery, but, when I try it in the car I can't get the switch light
to come on but the fog lights come on ok. Or, conversly I can get the
switch light to come on but not the fog lights.
Anyone come across this problem before or have any ideas? Please,
it's so damn frustrating.
The switch has 6 leads and I found the following works in the house;
top left to ground
top right to positive
bottom right to fog lamp (which is also grounded)
Thanks in anticipation.
William.

 

[johninKY]

Assumming the installed fog lights are factory items, what you really need
to do is get the factory wiring harness between the lights and switch.
The 6 terminals is a tip off this is a complex wiring harness.

 

[William MacDouglas]

Thanks Johnin KY,
Thanks for the reply, the problem is they arn't factory or dealer
installed. They are just common fog lamps that were hooked up in a Sears
shop. Why Sears you may ask, well I was away from home for about a year
on a contract in northern Manitoba, and the nearest Subaru dealer was
quite a bit away and closed Saturdays and Sundays. Yes, I could take it
to the Subaru dealer here and have them do it, but I'm stubborn and want
to fix this myself and I'm damn'd if I'm going to let this weasely
wiring out-fox me.
The wiring harness clips into the fog light switch and then your
still left with the problem of which wire goes where. It links up to the
ignition and cuts the lights when the ignition is turned off and all
sorts of other stuff. But I don't need that, want to keep the dash
looking good. Just on and off with the light coming on in the switch.

 

[S]

Hi William!

Anyone come across this problem before or have any ideas? Please,
it's so damn frustrating.

I'm afraid that your frustration may continue; the OEM wiring isn't
simple. There is a fog light relay, and IIRC, that is tied in with the
hi/lo beam selector such that the fogs are only on with the lo beams .
.. . And we really don't know how the Sears guys wired your fogs, but
Subaru does all of the switching in the "ground" side of the circuit,
and their switch is designed to work with this arrangement.
As such, the OEM switch may not be the way to go. RadioShack has a
selection of illuminated switches that can be mounted in one of the
blanks on the dash. These are designed to do just what you want; one
terminal goes to the battery, one to ground, and the "switched"
terminal goes to the load, the fogs, or fog relay in this case. The
internal lamp is connected between the switched terminal and the
ground terminal so that when the switch is "ON", the internal lamp is
powered.
I have an '02 WRX service manual available on my server at
http://chester.uccs.edu/WRX_Manual/. If you wish to D/L the wiring
section (~5MB .pdf file), it shows the fog light wiring _and_ switch
layout. If that's more'n you want, email me directly, and I'll send
you just the page with the fogs, but that's still not gonna help you
much if the installer has used the more traditional wiring scheme
outlined above.
Hope this helps a bit.

ByeBye! S.
Steve Jernigan KG0MB
Laboratory Manager
Microelectronics Research
University of Colorado
(719) 262-3101

 

[William MacDouglas]

Hi Steve,
Thanks for the info, it was quite useful and it did help isolate the
problem. And to prove it, I bought a cheap 2 dollar 3 pin rocker switch
with on/off light. I then roughly connected this very simple switch, and
lo and behold even this did not work properly. When I switched it on,
the foglights cam on ok but then the rocker switch light went out, and
visa versa when I switched it off the fog lamps went out but then the
rocker switch light come on. This happened no matter how I switched the
wiring leads. So, it seems to me that that great genius at Sears must
have miswired the fog lamp relay. Something that would never "come to
light" as they just used a simple 2 pin on/off rocker switch.
Ah well, I'll just wait till the weather gets a bit warmer then I'll
totaly re-wire the fog lamp system. Damn pity, because I wanted the fogs
to help driving in snow blizzards.
Thanks to all for your kind reply's and contributions. But if any of
you have any quick solutions, I'd still gladly accept them.
Kindest regards,
William.