(DIY) enable our USA rear fog lights for E90 & E92

I took my light switch apart and discover that our switch has the ability for rear fogs, but there's one little piece needed/missing to activate it.

The switch is very easy to take apart.....just a few clips on the...

That would be cool but I'd imagine if you choose the heated seats option, different seats with heating elements inside are installed in your car. Someone like E90Fleet would know for sure but that would be interesting to find out if all the seats have heating built-in and all you need is a switch to activate it. Although, thinking about it, how much sense would that make from BMW's finanical standpoint? If the heating feature is being sold in every seat why not just make it a standard option and add to the value of the car, yeah know?

Those clips that keep the button from falling out, are they on the dummy button as well?

I noticed that on the white plastic insert, there seems to be a sort of stop molded in the bottom to prevent the button from being pushed in too far. This is my mock up from a piece of acrylic and just used a pencil for the dowel. I don't have my car yet, so size is just a guess.
Actual piece:


Mock ups:

Yes, the dummy button has the same piece on the back of it as the front fog button. That piece has the track on it. The clips themselves are attached to the main unit itself. When you open it up you will see it.

ska, you are on bmw most wanted (they loose money because of you)

anyway, I was just thinking, cant wait to dig into this one of these weekend. But caution to everyone who plan to do this. Make sure whatever mock up device you created for this mod, that it fit snuggly into the back housing so it wont rattle (and drive you nuts). Here is where your creative mind go to work.

actually I would prefer it like that...only one fog coming on. The Porsches run around like that, and so do some of the audi's (passenger side lighting up only).

I'll see if I can grab the euro switch from parts next week so I have my first
project to do...

ste92ve. the hole on the white piece is not to prevent the thing from going too far down, as you can see the 4 circles on the square part itself actually sticks out once again, so that doesnt make sense.

i did this mod already, i can tell u that the hole is there for the LED light to go thru to the translucent marking on the button. The hole goes around a small LED and allows the button image to be illuminated. the contacts on the circuit board still get pushed down all the way by the circular protrusions.

I think I got it now!

There are two pieces of white plastic.

One that is attached to the buttons and the other white plastic piece actuates the switches for the fog lights as seen here:


What needs to be fabricated is only the white plastic piece shown above that actuates the fog light switch because there is already the white plastic piece attached to the dummy button as pictured here:


And if I may take a stab at this, the reason why SKA had to cut a longer piece of rubber than the original part is that if it was the same size, because of the give of the rubber, it wouldn't have exerted enough pressure to actuate the switch.

I know it would be easier if I had my car already but it's still on the high seas.

Thanks for all your patience.

It was a fun little mod for a feature I will be lucky to use a handful of times in the 2 years I will have this car. I definitely wouldn't have bought the Euro switch for this. I just don't think I will use them enough.

True.....not many folks can keep up with the 335i to tailgate them (the alternative use for rear fogs as a deterent for tailgaters!).

Awesome DIY, I just did it myself. The reason you cut the piece longer is because the white piece has a built in stop while your piece wont. I ended up making mine out of a gluestick and a small square piece of plastic and it works great. Thanks for saving me 60 bucks.

Being that the lightswitch is right below the airvent, dont you think the gluestick will melt a bit?

same here. I have a US switch available. Check my sig.

I doubt that will be a problem, glue guns need to get to 380 degrees to melt the glue, and my car wont get anywhere near that so it should be fine. Also the glue stick material is kinda rubbery so rattles wont be a problem either.

if you open up the light switch....99.9 % is plastic anyways

I've got a $10 bill in my pocket and it wants to find a home and I'm local! PM me if interested.

I want to do this mod to improve visibility while backing up at night. The back-up lights are not as bright as I would like -- not an issue in the city, but handy where I am out in the dark countryside where you can really see the stars...

So, if I understand the problem, one needs to pull out the light control assembly, crack it open, get the little white plastic piece, duplicate it, place both pieces back in in the right place so that they push the control bumps on the control card when the button is pushed -- and a couple bits of plastic along the edge of the button have to be clipped to allow it to move in when pushed.

Cool. Someone will come up with the ideal material to fab the white part. I am going to put my sons to work searching in their Legos. Alternatively, my wife's dept just got a cool machine that can scan an object -- say, for example, the head of a femur, digitize it in 3-D, and then duplicate it from this foam material that can be hardened. Somehow I don't think I'm going to displace the surgeons to get time on this...

hehe I cant wait until I get my own to do this.

:Sigh: waiting is the hardest part.

My next quest is to locate a set of Euro tailights...red and clear go really well on a red car

Sorry, I should've specified I used a hot glue gun stick, a regular glue stick would definately not be a good idea.

Great DIY. Read about this yesterday and did it in an hour last night....yeah I'm a little slow. Overall very easy process. The only tricky part was unclipping the button from the assembly. I use a wire twist and glued it to a piece of plastic from my Honda harness (I know I'm going to get a lot of shit for doing that but its the only piece of hard plastic I could find in my garage)Thanks everyone for your ideas.

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Could you make your pictures a bit bigger? It was really hard to see how you made it.

Seeing where you need to cut the rear fog button to free it from the switch, what's the best technique for removing the buttons off the switch?