Yellow Fog Lights?

I've noticed most after market fog likes usually have a yellow tint to them of somesort. Would it be worth putting a yellow film over my stock fog lights? Or does it make no difference, a friend was telling me yellow lights help more than your standard lights in fog, is there any truth to this?

 

[Charlie]

The only reason I have known yellow fogs to help is in snow. Supposedly they make snow visibility better. I have no personal experience with them, so I cannot say for sure.

 

[Donner]

No need...

You don't need film... If you want to swap out the bulbs for yellows, you can do that. Anybody that has every driven in th Bay Area or through Central/Northern CA during fog can tell you that it doesn't matter the color, it's the intensity that helps - however, you are limited to about 42-45 watts or you could cause melting and possibly fire in the stock area...

You could add fog lights to the vehicle, and leave the stock stock... I have a set of yellow stocks and white stocks... you never know when you might need them

 

[davesexplorer]

I have yellow fogs with a bit higher wattage than stock. I feel they are brighter in inclement weather, but it's hard to tell with my HID's pretty much sending out daylight.

 

[north/west,ex]

I do a lot of driving in snow and foggy conditions and have yellowish lights for this .
They came with 50w which I recently changed to 100w and find that they work well .
I think it's as much the beam (flat and wide ) as the colour that makes a difference

 

[Donner]

External lights...

I do a lot of driving in snow and foggy conditions and have yellowish lights for this .
They came with 50w which I recently changed to 100w and find that they work well .
I think it's as much the beam (flat and wide ) as the colour that makes a difference

Your lighting is not in the stock area?

 

[north/west,ex]

No my lights are not stock or in what would be stock location.
They are bumper mounted and therefore lower than my headlights but I do feel beam design and colour have an effect.

 

[Exploderpilot]

bright white driving lights tend to blend with the headlights and wash out your field of view. yellow tinted driving lights are supposed to create contrast, but it only really works with the high end brands that pay attention to those details like delta, hella, etc...

 

[Anime]

SELECTIVE yellow (which IS different from plain yellow or "crystal ion" yellow garbage) fog lights (or headlights, even) *SEEM* to give better visibility in fog and inclement weather, BUT the scientific testing on this seems to indicate it has less to do with the color being yellow, and more to do with the yellow glass reducing the light intensity and therefore glare. Clear lenses with regular halogen bulbs are just fine for both headlights and fog lights. Yellow fog lights seem more helpful when the headlamp bulbs are HID's or the fake HID "super white/blue/etc." bulbs since the yellow light is in the useful visible spectrum and visually overpowers the less intense "white/blue" light. I still have selective yellow fogs, and they *DO* make a difference on dark, wet pavement, but that's about it, the rest of the time, clear/white light gives better visibility.

For stock fogs, I'd suggest standard 55W bulbs. You can get yellow bulbs if you must have yellow light, but those are more for people who are hardcore believers in yellow fogs.

 

[Bill Kemp]

Good "Fog" lights are determined by the beam pattern not the color. As mentioned, yellow is considered best in falling/blowing snow conditions. IMO regular bulbs, as opposed to super whites, do the best job of illuminating the beam area in rain. Yellow and superwhite are not as good in rain. I havent tried the HID yellow bulbs yet but hope to put them in a set of Hella Micro DEs to see what they do. I dont mind the yellow light but its just not as bright as the regular bulbs.
So...buy good lights, pay attention to how they are aimed/adjusted and use 85 or 100 watt bulbs and you should be one of the best lit vehs. on the road.

 

[ZBlackBeast]

Heres what i have. They are really good, i like um.

 

[muzzymaniac]

Living in Upstate NY - I declare myself a snow expert. I've always run amber fog/driving lights. I have yet to find ones I want to put on my X. They make a huge difference on heavy snow! Fogs work best because of the flat beam they create. I've used mostly cheapo's and they work great. My theory is that the white snow reflects the white light causing the glare. Yellow naturally isn't as bright so the glare is reduced. Try shining a regular flashlight in your eyes then one with a yellow lens. The best results are obtained by turning your headlights off- leaving your parking lights and tails on and using the amber fogs. I've done this many times when you can't even see the front of the car with the headlights on. Turn them off and on with the amber and you can see the whole road!
I'm putting a set on my kid's Ranger tomorrow. Just my experience.

 

[storlied]

Zbackbeast how did u get ur lights like that?

and im in alaska, so would putting yellow film on them do nothing for the snow flyin all over the place?

 

[Anime]

The blue tinge leads me to believe those lights all have some kind of "superwhite/blue" bulb in them.

Yellow film won't do much, except give the lights a yellowish tinge so the beam will be yellower and other cars might perceive them as yellow, making your ride more noticable, which is also an advantage of yellow fogs. Like Bill said, the difference is really in the lights, a top-quality fog light will have a good cutoff fog pattern, whether the lens is clear or selective yellow...and only good brand names like Bosch, Cibie, Marchal, Hella, etc. etc. have selective yellow lenses...just yellow (or making clear fogs produce yellow light) isn't the same for visibility, but is alright if you just want to make your lights more visible and noticable to other drivers. If you REALLY want yellow fogs, you want yellow bulbs..get some good Philips or Hella ones, and stay away from the yellow plasma/ion stuff. Like I said, my experience is that yellow really only makes a difference when the pavement is black or really dark, and it's wet..then the yellow light shows up when the white light scatters or is absorbed. For snow, it might produce slightly less glare, but not enough of a difference that I'd go changing the colors of factory fog lights or converting clear ones to selective yellow, either. Really and truly, the simplest choice is standard halogen, which is an optimal balance for all weather, and the price is nice, too.

As for amber lights...they are likely not as good as white or yellow, being far from the white/yellow spectrum of useful light, though that would also cause them to produce even less glare. They are mostly a cosmetic item as far as I've seen, on some sports cars, and even the recent special edition Explorer had amber fogs.

 

[storlied]

Alright, what type of bulbs do my fogs use? (rectangle fogs on the 98) and how would I clean up the lense, they're old and look like crap.

I'm more about visibility than the look of the lights.

 

[Bill Kemp]

Bulb by year is found in the Lighting FAQs.
Cleaning up the lenses is possible by taking them off and washing them, However when you go to the trouble of taking them off you would be much better served if you replaced them with some good aftermarket fogs.

 

[storlied]

Yea, but the cheap alternative would be taking them off and cleaning them. For now....

I don't know the exact condition of the lenses, but if they're really bad.. I guess I'm going with aftermarket.
I wish the wiring harness was good enough for 50w.

 

[Sams01XplrSprt]

I have yellow fogs on my 01 sport i just put yellow window film over my stock fogs but i wanna get them brighter I wanna get like 50 or 55 watt cause right now they are 35 watt but I wanna make them brighter my fogs.

 

[Sams01XplrSprt]

i have some pics of my 01 sport with my yellow fogs on but i wana get them a lot brighter cause 35 watt is not that good i wanna get brighter like 50 or 55 watt

 

[Flandry]

I've got older yellow fog lights on my Ex, but have noticed most fog lights sold these days are white. This made me curious, so I did some investigating. Current research seems to indicate there is actually little difference between yellow and white lights. See this link.

In fact, most yellow lights are worse because the tinting can reduce the light output significantly. What seems to be more important than color is placement. The Car Talk guys address both here.

The singular exception I've found is Selective Yellow lights. You can read about them here.