Pelican Pete

Apparently my previous post either got deleted, or I inadvertently did not hit the "post message" button. :-(

Despite the frigid cold yesterday, I installed my Hella MicroDE foglights into my car. I actually bought the entire kit from PG Performance, which includes brackets and grilles, as well as the lamps. A friend of mine in NJ is a previous Mercedes technician, and also used to do auxillary automotive and marine lighting systems as a side job. He let me work in his heated garage, and also helped me out when I ran into trouble (which was pretty often, since I am not too adept with a wrench.)

Rather than posting the pictures here on Audiworld, I uploaded them to my Yahoo Briefcase.
It also keeps this post loading fast, rather than having to download eight pictures all at once.

The hardest part of the installation was remounting the horn. But PGPerformance includes a bracket and bolt for this purpose. I found a space for it back and to the right (as you're looking at it). The wiring harness just barely reached it. In fact, I had to drill another hole in the bracket, because IMHO the bracket is about 1/2" too long, and the wires would not reach.
If you look at the picture, there is another blue wire coming from the horn -- that is the lead for my airhorns.

I also snapped a few pictures of the foglight installation. Installing the lamps was a piece of cake. PGPerformance includes brackets which are specifically made for the pre-99 bumpers, and hold the Hella MicroDE's firmly in place. The two tabs on the bracket fit into the existing holes in the bumper. And a bolt and spire clip on the vertical rib holds the other side of the bracket.

The wiring was pretty straightforward. I just spliced into the factory headlight harness, since the earlier cars have foglights integrated in the headlights. (I upgraded to Euro projectors last year, so I have been without foglights all this time.)
The green&white wire is the hot lead for the fogs. Since I don't have fogs in the headlights anymore, I just clipped it from the harness and extended it down to the new foglamps.
I actually had my friend do all the wiring for me, since he is more experienced at it.

PGPerformance includes scotch clips to splice into the harness. But they are really cheesy. Instead, my friend spliced right into the wires and soldered the connections, and covered everything with heatshrink tubing. Much better connection than those cheesy scotch clips.

The kit from PGPerformance also includes a pair of black plastic grille inserts, with the foglight cutouts. They are not as high quality as the factory grilles. But they do the job quite nicely. And they have a mesh pattern which matches my RS4 grille.
My biggest concern is that they block some airflow to the intercooler. And the left and right sides do not look exactly the same. (This is actually because the bumper itself is not symmetrical -- the vertical rib is placed differently on either side.)
I will be paying close attention to the sound and feel of my engine and turbo when the weather gets warmer. But for now it seems fine.

There is one downside to this story...
After I took my car out of the garage and snapped a few photos with the lights on, they blew the fuse. My friend and I took everything apart looking for the short circuit -- his wiring was triple insulated, so we could not believe that it was anything that we did.
And in fact it was not. After about an hour of troubleshooting, we found that the hot lead for the fogs on the drivers side was shorting to ground. :-(
The passengers side was NOT shorting out.
I removed the fuse and even the switch in the dashboard. And we eliminated ALL aftermarket lights from the equation. The short is actually upstream of everything aftermarket -- either in the vehicle's wiring harness, or more likely, the relay for the foglights.
(If my other post did indeed come through, then I apologize for being redundant. But I could not find that post.)
I have an appointment with my dealer next week.
Hopefully they can fix this under warranty, since the short is obviously independent of any aftermarket work.

My headlights, despite being upgraded to Euro projectors, are stock 55w H7 bulbs. And the foglamps are also 55w bulbs, which is stock wattage for the factory fogs.
They ran just fine for about 10-15 minutes while I took pictures. So I am pretty confused where this short circuit came from.
Headlights and high beams still work fine.

I'm certainly looking forward to getting them up and running soon! :-)

In the meantime, at least I have some pictures of them working.

-- Peter
98.5 1.8tqms
I'm really dissappointed that I did not get to drive home with them! But I did see them light up my friend's driveway quite nicely.

Jack Wang

Wow, the whole kit looks nice

GreekTTCharlie

nice...how much was the whole setup? I bought just the fogs and installed them a few weeks ago.

Pelican Pete

I think that PG Perf was having a holiday sale when I ordered them. With the US/CDN exchange rate I only paid $210 US for the whole kit.

I was originally going to get PIAAs, but the lamps alone cost that much!!

They might be a little bit more than that now.
They also carry it in two versions -- with wiring and switch, and without wiring and switch.

Since I hooked the fogs up to my facory wiring, I bought the less expensive kit without the additional wiring. I don't know how much the other kit costs.

-- Peter

EricB

Excellent! I am doing mine on the 19th (and also putting in the Euro projectors).