The LED SAE J583 Fog Pod & Fog Light Review

Next up, the long anticipated Denali/Vision X SAE fogs. Claiming 40w power, more than the SS3 Max while specing an F3 compliant pattern.

 

I have been pestering KC for years for a proper selective yellow option instead of amber. A new video released today on their selective yellow option for KC lamps.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxeGRON41L4&t=5s

 

On the topic of when would you want white in a fog pattern, I’d call out one example where I chose that.

On my wife’s odyssey, since sold, and highway 74 into Palm Desert where her father has a little vacation home and we would visit every other week during winter months when we lived in San Diego. We would leave Thursday at/after dinner and do the final stretch of switchbacks in the dark. It could be foggy at times but that was rare. Mostly the switchbacks are clear roads but very dark, no street lamps. Wife and kids would typically be asleep or dozing off. My task as driver was to thread the smoothest possible line through those switchbacks without risk of hitting anyone coming up the hill or going too slow and adding time or too fast and having someone get nauseous (apparently my wife’s side all gets carsick easily and we’ve had a few instances in her car on that stretch where the kids yak’s). It was legit white knuckle time for me, I’d sometimes sweat due to concentration of trying to thread each needle on such a soft suspension for minimal occupant disruption.

The white fog pattern seemed to excel at this, most clearly identifying the road markings without a negative impact on traffic coming up the hill. High beams were less useful though fun to see the surrounding peaks and valleys in the straightaways but entirely terrible for others. Low beams with h9 bulbs were ok but not fantastic without the fog lamps on.

I drove the same stretch with my Tacoma and selective yellow max at least once and found the yellow not quite as good at this task. Though my Tacoma fog lamps are considerably higher than the odyssey location so that’s another factor.

I totally agree that for any real weather situation where fog lamps are needed due to poor visibility, selective yellow is the superior option. My use case was very specific and I don’t know of many roads like that one.

 

Mountain roads and switchback turns are an area where less of a fog lamp is needed, and more of a legitimate cornering lamp. While I hate tk advocate illegal lamps, because generally few people seem to be disciplined enough to use them appropriately, you may find using something like the old/pre-fix BD "sae" "fog lamps" (or just a normal BD widebeam lamp) more useful than a fog lamp. Installed in the fog lamp location, aimed outward, and if not slightly "up," at least perpendicularly to the roadway, and *Carefully* switched on and off by an attentive driver as the traffic situation dictated.


One part of the equation, which I can't really judge here having no experience with a honda oddyseys fog lamps, is that they may have been a very poor actual "fog lamp" and have provided extra uplight above and beyond what your DD lamps could provide (especially with what I take is probably correct aiming of these) making them better suited to switchback turns.

 

One of the reasons I went for DD SSc3 Pro fogs was for the diffuse upper cutoff when driving winding FSRs at night. Using that extra up light and wider pattern to cheat on the H9's to light up the road edges and lurking critters.

 

Fantastic post! I'm looking at replacing my factory fog lights with LED, after another driver busted one of them.

Looks like a long thread to go through. Are all the reviews on the original post up to date? Or are there reviews for newer products scattered throughout the comments, as well?

 

yes, Crash keeps the it updated

 

All the product update posts are linked at the top of the original thread. I’d recommend the Diode Dynamics SS3 Sport or Elites in selective yellow if snow is not a concern. In areas of snow I’d go with the SS3 Max in selective yellow, which are one of the few that run hot enough to clear snow.

 

Awesome, thanks! I'm in Canada, so snow & ice is definitely a concern! I was eyeballing the KC G4s, but I'll definitely check out the SS3 Max!

 

I had the G4's back in the day. They were pretty good at the time, but I have the DD Max's now, and they totally blow the G4's away.

 

Wow! Those do look pretty fantastic! No worries about melting the bumper at those operating temperatures? (I arguably don't know what temperature the factory halogens operate at).

Are they plug and play with the factory wiring & circular mounting bracket? Or do I need additional hardware? I don't see any information on Tacoma compatibility on the product page.

 

No concerns about heat to the bumper. To mount them in the OEM fog location you need to buy the Tacoma fog kit, not the stand-alone pod.

https://www.diodedynamics.com/ss3-led-fog-light-kit-for-2016-2023-toyota-tacoma.html

 

Perfect! Thanks again!

 

Prolightz is a great Canadian vendor for Diode Dynamics. I've bought SSc3 and SSc2 through them had great customer service from Will. Watch Christmas/Boxing Day/New Years sales.

 

You, Good Sir, just saved me at least $90. Probably more once boxing day sales and duty charges are factored in. Thanks!

 

I'm looking at halogen fogs for my first gen, mainly the KC 6" Apollo Pro and the Hella 550, but I'm open to others. I've mocked up a few digitally to see how they'd look, but I'm wondering if anyone has experience with the performance of any of these lights.

 

Hella 500s are covered in the posts here: Hella 500 & 4000 fogs, Hella 500 Comet (yellow)

I have the 550s I need to make some time to test. No info on the Apollos. You can see some very very rough iso plots on Hella's site to compare their some of their halogen lamps. The plots are poor resolution and pretty poor overall, but better than nothing.

 

Sounds good, I like the 550s aesthetically, wife likes the 6" Apollos. If I end up getting the Apollos, would you want one to test?

I still need to build and install a relay box, so wiring fogs up (properly) is a ways out.

 

If you want to send them my way first, I'd be happy to compare them.

 

I think the 6" apollos and the hella 500s look the best on your setup. But I don't know anything about their performance.