Fog Lamps

First of all, I should admit I got the dealer to do the job in the end. You may understand why if I explain that the entire front bumper of the car (inc headlamps and various underbody assemblies) need to come off to fit them. Anthony Bortolotto very kindly provided this explanation of how to get the front bumper off...

"First you have remove the head lamps..

There are 3 bolts that you have unscrew from each head lamp. Then unplug the head lamps and wriggle them out of the front bar and guard. (Its a tight fit but it can be done) Then you have unscrew the black plastic guards cover which are attached at the front of the bumper right through to the brakes. (You don't have to remove the guard completely from the car just unscrew it from the bumper. After you have done that you have to unscrew the bolt from the to front metal guard from bumper. It is located inside the wheel guard behind the plastic cover (Which should be unscrewed by now).

There is only one screw on each side. Now there are four large bolts either side of the radiator which attached the bumper to the chassis. Unscrew them and then the bumper slides right off. You will have to disconnect the Indicators but otherwise everything should work."

Having read this, and viewed the pictures on Anthony's (excellent) site, I pretty much decided it was worth the two hours of labour (£84 inc vat) at the local Mazda dealer to let them take the blame should anything go wrong(!). This, together with the original cost of the lamps (£140), makes the job quite an expensive one (£224). This includes the original Mazda switch for the dash, but probably looks expensive to anyone who has fitted a smaller non-Mazda fog lamp kit.

Despite the fact that I "chickened out" - I did do a fair bit of research into the job, and the following points maybe of use to others contemplating doing this:

Mounting

Looking at the finished job, the lamps use the same anchor points as the black grills they replace, there are three anchor points in all. To allow such a robust fitting the lamps come with a bulky mounting bracket, and it is mainly this bracket and the number of anchor points that mean the bumper must come off the car.

Wiring

The lamps come with a ready made connection lead (about 50cm long) with appropriate terminals. These then simply plug into an existing connection off the car's wiring loom behind the back of the headlamp unit.

The leads that come with the lamps maybe a bit on the long side, because the dealer has had to conceal a fair amount of excess cable in the hollow immediately behind the front bumper.

You will find that the dashboard switch is also ready wired with a connection block for the switch sitting straight behind the blank on the dashboard next to the rear fog lamp switch. The dashboard light is already wired in - you don't need to make any additional connections. The instructions that came with the lamps suggest that you need to remove the lower section of the dashboard (the bit beneath the steering wheel) to get behind the dash and force the blank out.

Overall

The fog lamps come with some pretty useless instructions, they are written on the assumption that you have a Mazda workshop manual to hand, which I didn't.

The lamps do seem effective, providing a large field of diffuse light. The bulbs are only 21W, yet it does make a very real difference to the amount of light put out by the car.

Quite pleased that my 323F is a little more than standard now