Fog light help

jhill15

Explorer
I replaced my fog bulbs this morning and when I put the new bulbs in "12v55w halogen" I immediately blew the fog light fuse in the engine fusable link box. I replaced the fuse turned the fogs on and the same thing happened. When I first put the bulbs in I started with the passenger side, turned em on, worked fine. Then did the driver, thats when the fuse blew. Prior I was using led fog bulbs so I put the led back in the driver side and turned em on and they worked fine. I then swapped the driver side halogen that blew the fuse for the passenger side halogen, turned em on, all good. So i took out the led on the driver side and put the other halogen that was originally on the passenger side in its place, turned em on and everything works fine.

Im not sure why that one bulb on the driver side would blow a fuse but will work fine on the passenger side.

Has anyone had the same thing happen or feed me some knowledge as why and how it could happen?

Thanks in advance
 

jhill15

Explorer
Thats what im thinking. Im also gonna check to see if I can put the socket on backwards just to make sure it wasnt an operator error lol. I dont you can but im gonna check just to be positive.
 

libarata

Expedition Leader
May as well try. Some LEDs can operate no matter the poles, but other lights can not. So either reverse the polarity, or perhaps a short, or even a bad ground?
 

Mrknowitall

Adventurer
The 9006 has a plastic base, so polarity shouldn't matter, but unless you modified the harness, the plug can't be connected backwards- not that it matters to a light-bulb. Its a resistive load. From your experimentation, it doesn't look like anything with one specific light, just smoking the fuse whenever you have both bulbs in. The LED that were in there before are WAY lower amperage. The 55W halogens should have a 10A fuse... 2x 55W /12V= 9.somechange. next size bigger is 10.
Japanese vehicles tend to use low-side switching. that means the positive is always connected directly to battery power, while the ground goes through the switch. Suppose you could have a partial short or another consumer tied to the same circuit. With the low draw from the LEDs, it never would have been a problem. Does something else stop working when you pull/blow the fog light fuse? If you have a DVM, set it for current and put it in place of the fuse (with the fog light bulbs out) does it register any current? it shouldn't.
 
Last edited:

jhill15

Explorer
Yeah I definitely couldnt of hooked the socket in backwards. I was thinking that since the leds use such a small voltage that replacing them with the halogens just set the fuse off as it hadnt had that much voltage going through the fuse in a while but when it kept blowing it definitely spells out a short some where. I do know that I have a short in my driver door courtesy light. I found this out by putting a bulb in it and my entire truck went into limp mode like when it is brand new and delivered to the dealer. It blew the 10a fuse that controls the fuel pump, lights, security, radio, sunroof and about a hlaf a dozen other things. The p.o. before the p.o. that I bought it from installed a hitch and tapped into the driver tail lamp for the trailer wiring and im starting to think thats where the root of my problems are coming from. Mainly because thats the only place that the wiring has been tapped into, its on the left side and thats the side all my electrical problems are stemming from.
 

Forum statistics

Threads
190,005
Messages
2,923,028
Members
233,266
Latest member
Clemtiger84
Top