adding fog lights

[antman25]

i want to add fog lights to my 2001 chevy tahoe. I was thinking of just tapping into the low beams or i can just run a power wire to the batt and ground with a switch to turn on and off. Do i need a relay? I just need a little help i will be adding hid lights in them.

[audiofanaticz]

depending on the fog light kit you buy, they sometimes come with a pre-wired relay harness that connects to your battery positive and negative and then a switch to turn them on and off that you mount in the vehicle..

Otherwise, if you want to run them with off the lowbeams you will NEED a relay, otherwise you can risk blowing the headlight fuse by trying to run foglights and the lowbeams of the stock lowbeam wiring (DO NOT ATTEMPT TO FUSE THE LOWBEAMS HIGHER, THE STOCK WIRING CANT SUPPORT THE ADDED CURRENT AND WILL MELT THE STOCK WIRING WHICH COULD RESULT IN FIRE)!

So if you wanted to run off the low beams power, still use the relay harness that comes with the fog light kit, and then instead of using the switch to turn the headlights on and off, you would wire 1 of the switch wires to the stock positive headlight wire (iitc the positive headlight wire is brown or a tan color) (you would have to test to see which of the 2 wires is the one going to the relay and use that wire).

Then when you turn your lowbeams on, the wire going to the relay will turn the relay on, resulting in the foglights going on/off with the low beams.

[Chris661]

yes run a relay! always run a relay when adding lights.

you can tap into the low beams. but use the low beam wire as a trigger wire for the relay.

[audiofanaticz]

here are a couple videos about wiring different types of relays and a link if you prefer to read.

http://www.the12volt.com/relays/relays.asp

[antman25]

i thought that the 1999 and up had built in relays so tapping in the low beams i would run off that one