Fog light not turning on

[Rolfe]

I have always found it difficult to turn on the fog light due to the stupid positioning of the button on the touch-screen, but I did manage to do it once or twice. Not for a while though. I have had the infotainment upgraded from R13 to R33 since I last had the fog light on, I think.

On Sunday on the M6 in the middle of the monsoon known as Storm Bert there was so much spray that people were turning on fog lights. I could see it was really necessary and went to the trouble of trying to turn mine on. No joy. No matter how carefully I put my finger on that top-left button, nothing happened. This was in the fast lane of a motorway in very poor visibility, too.

I remembered the short-cut menu and pulled that down. The button was larger and easier to reach but I still couldn't get the light to go on. I tried again today when the car was stationary in my drive, and it's definitely not working. It was as if both buttons were completely unaware that I was pressing them.

Has anyone else encountered this? Could I ask people with R33 for the SE to give it a try?

 

[Ian Key]

Were your lights on auto or manual?

Try switching your lights on manually and then try the fog light.

 

[NickHeynes]

I have always found it difficult to turn on the fog light due to the stupid positioning of the button on the touch-screen, but I did manage to do it once or twice. Not for a while though. I have had the infotainment upgraded from R13 to R33 since I last had the fog light on, I think.

On Sunday on the M6 in the middle of the monsoon known as Storm Bert there was so much spray that people were turning on fog lights. I could see it was really necessary and went to the trouble of trying to turn mine on. No joy. No matter how carefully I put my finger on that top-left button, nothing happened. This was in the fast lane of a motorway in very poor visibility, too.

I remembered the short-cut menu and pulled that down. The button was larger and easier to reach but I still couldn't get the light to go on. I tried again today when the car was stationary in my drive, and it's definitely not working. It was as if both buttons were completely unaware that I was pressing them.

Has anyone else encountered this? Could I ask people with R33 for the SE to give it a try?

HI Rolfe, I've an SE SR with R33. I've just been out to try mine and it's fine. It's daytime so my lights weren't on automatic, so switched them on. Tried with both buttons. Both worked.

 

[Rolfe]

Were your lights on auto or manual?

Try switching your lights on manually and then try the fog light.

Lights were on auto. I could try that.

 

[Rolfe]

HI Rolfe, I've an SE SR with R33. I've just been out to try mine and it's fine. It's daytime so my lights weren't on automatic, so switched them on. Tried with both buttons. Both worked.

Thanks very much, that eliminates one possibility.

 

[MG Clive]

It should have had a push on/off button on the end of the light stalk.

 

[Rolfe]

Were your lights on auto or manual?

Try switching your lights on manually and then try the fog light.

HI Rolfe, I've an SE SR with R33. I've just been out to try mine and it's fine. It's daytime so my lights weren't on automatic, so switched them on. Tried with both buttons. Both worked.

Thanks guys, you're both right. The car is currently in the garage, so in dim light. When I got in the auto-lights activated, and the fog light came on no bother.

It seems it won't come on if the lights aren't on, so if there is fog or bad spray in daylight it's necessary to turn the lights on first. I suppose that makes sense when you think about it, but it didn't occur to me right there in the fast lane of the M6 and visibility getting atrocious.

Now I know, I'll remember what to do. (I can't remember if any previous car of mine needed the lights to be on before the fog light would go on. Maybe it's just sense that you'd have the lights on anyway, but it didn't happen that way on Sunday.)

 

[Rolfe]

It should have had a push on/off button on the end of the light stalk.

Absolutely. Actually my Golf's fog light was awkward to get on. It was on the dial that controlled which setting the lights were on, and it wasn't intuitive to find the fog light setting. More than once I plunged the entire car into darkness trying to get them on. Needs to be easy to do. If you suddenly hit bad visibility you don't want to fiddle around.

 

[Diggsy]

Thanks guys, you're both right. The car is currently in the garage, so in dim light. When I got in the auto-lights activated, and the fog light came on no bother.

It seems it won't come on if the lights aren't on, so if there is fog or bad spray in daylight it's necessary to turn the lights on first. I suppose that makes sense when you think about it, but it didn't occur to me right there in the fast lane of the M6 and visibility getting atrocious.

Now I know, I'll remember what to do. (I can't remember if any previous car of mine needed the lights to be on before the fog light would go on. Maybe it's just sense that you'd have the lights on anyway, but it didn't happen that way on Sunday.)

That makes absolute sense and I believe is the correct process. No car I’ve ever driven would allow the fog lights to turn on without the other lights being switched on.

 

[Rolfe]

Not something I had really thought about, but you're right, it makes perfect sense, why would you want the fog light and not the other lights. I feel a bit silly now.

I think, unusually, although the rain was very heavy, it wasn't quite dark enough to have triggered the auto lights. I just thought "fog light!" and tried to switch it on without realising the auto lights hadn't come on and I should switch them on. I think that in other cars I've had, switching on the fog lights required the lighting system to be cycled past turning it on to get to the fog lights.

Yes, I do feel silly. But we learn from our mistakes.

 

[Diggsy]

Nothing to feel silly about, your thinking was sound enough - get as much light as possible behind you to help the other drivers see you. Not a lot wrong with that

 

[Rolfe]

Yes, but the actual car lights would have done a better job. Other people had turned their lights on prior to activating the fog lights, but my one-track brain just went straight for "fog lights!"

 

[Alb]

Older cars often have the function physically interlocked e.g. rotate switch to headlights and pull to add fogs (where the switch will only pull out from the headlight position).

 

[Rolfe]

Yes, I think that's what I've been used to. I think I was so spooked by the rapidly deteriorating visibility combined with the knowledge that that fog lamp button is a bugger to press that I completely missed the obvious first thing to do. With the lights being on auto I don't usually have to touch them and I hadn't clocked that it wasn't dark enough for them to have come on. (It was literally about midday.) I've never met a car before where the fog light control was so completely divorced from the rest of the lighting system, and I just went straight for the fog light.

I remember in my Golf the dial was somewhere around my right knee and it had to be turned away from the auto-lighting setting and pulled out to get it to the fog lamp position. Half the time I rotated it the wrong way and plunged the entire car into darkness. But obviously once the right setting was found, dipped headlights and tail lights were also on.

When I picked up my Peugeot from new I took off straight up the motorway to somewhere in the Midlands for the weekend. Half way there I realised a lit icon on the dashboard had to be the fog lamp, but I had no idea how to get it to go off. I was back home before I sussed it. Amazingly, nobody drove up my tail and flashed me the entire journey, there or back. (It wasn't the only adventure with that car on its first day out either.)

 

[ReintjeWA]

I’m going to check this today, because having the fog lights on together with your normal lights is (for some reason) illegal in Western Australia. It would be interesting to see if they changed the software to comply with this.

More road rules and penalties

Merging, following distances, crossing continuous lines, keeping left, headlights, U-Turns, pilot vehicles and roundabouts

www.wa.gov.au

 

[Rolfe]

That isn't going to apply to the MG4 because it's only talking about a front fog light, which the MG4 doesn't have.

 

[ReintjeWA]

That isn't going to apply to the MG4 because it's only talking about a front fog light, which the MG4 doesn't have.

Oh yeah… big brain fart there lol

 

[Rolfe]

I only realised that recently, because the normal dipped headlights are quite effective in fog and I didn't realise there wasn't a separate fog lamp on the front.

 

[siteguru]

Maybe it's a feature of LED lights and their light pattern, meaning front fog lights are no longer really needed?

 

[Rolfe]

Yes, that was my impression.