Question on Replacing Lenses and Bulbs

Hi I was thinking of retro fitting fog lights to my 2004 mini cooper. The instructions look straight forward, however it says I need to reprogram the car to recognize the new fog lights. Is this true or can I just plug and play?

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[Nick at Pelican Parts]

You will need to program the vehicle. Once installed, you can have a shop do it for you.

- Nick

[Dave at Pelican Parts]

Not all shops will be able to do the job, too. If you are technical, motivated, and confident in your abilities, you can use NCSExpert to do the programming yourself. If you are missing one of those qualities, it is better to let a good shop do it. (You can "brick" your car, making it quite non-functional, using that software!)

The switches for most functions in the MINI merely tell the computers in the car what you want to do. Those are in charge of actually sending power to the appropriate wires, turning the lights or whatever it is on or off. At the factory, the computers were set up with the desired configuration of the car, including fog lights or a lack thereof. So you need to re-program them so they will actually turn on the lights when you hit the switch.

I don't know if the power management in the MINI is sophisticated enough to see the draw for the lights if you simply wire in a (hidden!) switch and run your own wires for the lights. If so, you may get a malfunction light even if you wire everything up the old-fashioned way...

--DD