Volvo V50 2009 Rear Fog Lamp

[SandraEC]

Hello

I have an English reg Volvo V50 which I am re-registering in France as this is where I live now. Having had the controle technique (MOT) done today they want me to switch the single rear fog light to the other side of the car as French manufactured cars would have it. I have already switched the headlights over, easy job with just a switch behind the headlight and wondered if there were something similar I could do for the fog lamp? Thanks in advance for any help offered.

Sandra

[Ian21401]

Don’t have the car now. but when daughter bought her V40 it only had right side rear fog lamp. The left side had a plastic blank over where the bulb would have been but there was what appeared to be a bulb holder there. We’ve always preferred two rear fog lamps. (Cannot understand why all cars are not built with two.) We removed the blank and inserted the correct bulb and “hey presto” two rear fog lamps.
Couldn’t do that on her present XC70 or her previous V50 because of the way it is wired. “Canbus” or something which I don’t understand.
If you “search” on your relevant section you should find some info on how to fix this. There appear to be two schools of thought regarding this and I think it depends on how your car is wired. The simple way appears to be simply linking a wire from the existing fog light to the one which is missing BUT, I remember quite some ago reading a thread about this which mentioned that this is not possible on certain models as it upsets the “bulb not working” warning. I think that the work around was to insert a relay into the wiring supplying the working light then run a feed from the relay to the required light.

[GMcL]

I had to do this when I exported my UK Volvo S60 to Germany. My S60 already had the bulb and wiring on the side which was not working.

You need a 4 pin relay something like this:
https://www.halfords.com/workshop-to...2v-30amp-4-pin

Run a cable from the working bulb circuit to connection 85 on the relay. This is the on/off connection to the dashboard switch.
Take a feed from the fusebox, minimum 2A fuse to supply the 21w foglight bulb and connect to connection 30 on the relay I linked to.
Run a cable to earth from connection 86.
Run a cable to the bulb you want to work from connection 87.

Done.

Volvo could have switched the sides I think in software but then I'd have the issue when driving in the UK of the wrong side of the car being lit if I needed to use my rear fog lights.