2006 Corolla - Activate Rear Nearside Fog Lamp

August 21, 2009

Have you ever wondered why some cars manufactured for the UK only have one rear fog lamp operative. UK laws only require an offside or centre fog lamp and not a nearside one. If you have been in a right hand drive car on a German Autobahn in bad visibility forced along at 70 miles per hour with only the British nearside fog lamp illuminated you will know what I mean.

There is no consistency between manufacturers or even models within the manufacturer’s rtange.

Do you want to add a nearside rear fog lamp to your 2003-2006 Toyota Corolla: It takes about half an hour, depending upon how competent and confident you are. This was done on a 2006 model. Whether there are any slight differences in earlier models I do not know.

First of all make sure that the ignition and all the lights are switched off.

The rear lamp cluster is secured by three 10mm nuts. Two them are accessible after removing the two interior boot blanking pieces. Two of the nuts are accessible but to access the (third) top one you need to pull away the top of the interior covering which are held by two push pins. This can be done by hand.

After removing the three bolts on each side you will observe that there is a bulb missing on the nearside cluster Remove the feed plug from the bulb cluster by holding in the small plastic tab with a small screwdriver and pull outwards. The rear fog lamp bulb is the right hand bulb (the one that is missing). You will also observe that there is a corresponding plastic blanking piece on the hole in the back of the cluster into which the bulb would be fitted. It is necessary to remove this blanking piece which is an integral part of the plastic surround. Carefully drill small holes around the circumference of the blanking piece until you can separate it from the housing and then clean the hole up with a round file.

You will also observe that the third connection in the plug does not have a wire attached. Obtain a suitable piece of insulated cable and bare the end for about 3cm and put this down into the back of the plug where the wire is missing and carefully replace the plug trapping the wire and making a sound connection. Ensure that there are no loose strands which might make another connection or touch the earth side

Run the cable underneath the black plastic edge protector between the two clusters and repeat the same exercise for the offside except use a blue snap connector on the red wire leading to the fog lamp bulb on that side.

Replace all the parts, making sure that the three nuts are not over tightened and that’s it.

Sorry there are no pictures, but I didn't think of posting this until I had finished and it is quite a straightforward job. You just need a bit of confidence to connect the wires and to remove the blanking piece on the cluster.