Fog Light Switch Frying

Hey, all. I recently bought a 2013 Tacoma. The stock fog light switch fried, so I installed an aftermarket one which fried, too. They worked for a few days then would burn up. Here is a pictureof the wires connected to the stock switch. Orange, White, and Black, but the orange has a Red hooked to it and all were wired to the stock and aftermarket switches.

At this point, can I just wire these in a way, with no switch, to stay on whenever my headlights are turned on?

 

well that is all aftermarket wiring. does that setup have a relay? what fogs are you running?

 

I don’t know. The switch that was in it when I bought it looked oem. Then after a little use it burned up. I haven’t had a chance to trace everything out. The fogs look oem, too, and I have regular bulbs in.
I guess I’ll try to find a wiring diagram and run my own wires. These only come on if the headlights are on which is fine for me.

 

I agree 100% here with the wiring being aftermarket and thus suspect. I'd also venture to guess that the lights / bulbs themselves are not OEM and probably high enough wattage to require a relay - which probably isn't there. You also might have an issue with under size wiring which increases resistance. If so, that would explain why your switches keep frying.

 

I’m looking at other threads and have found out my truck might have come pre-wired for the fogs much like it was pre-wired for the backup camera. I will find out soon, and hopefully the pre-wire is not jacked up with this other wiring. And I’ll look for the relay. This might be more plug and play than I thought.

 

The fog switch should like this. It doesn't have an indicator light to show that the fog lights are on. You'll know it's on when you can feel that the switch is recessed. The fog light icon lights up like the rest of the dashboard and switches when the headlights are turned on, regardless if the fog lights are on or off.

 

Cool; I’ll check it out. Thanks!

 

It is. I’m looking into it right now.

 

Yep it has the fog light pre-wire connector, the relay, and the fuse. Now to find out what these shoddy wires are and if the pre-wire is hacked up.

 

Well there is a fuse and relay installed to the extra aftermarket wires.
It looks like:

Red from fog lights goes to aftermarket relay then to white where aftermarket switch was.

Orange where aftermarket switch was goes to fuse then ties into truck white/green behind the pull down tray on the left side.

Blue from relay goes to a tiny red/black in the truck harness to a big white connector tucked back there good.

Black is ground.

How do I hook this back up with the pre-wired harness? Lol

 

iv'e had a long day but as long as i understand your wire tracing.... the previous owner installed it completely wrong. it sounds like full amperage is going through the switch. they didn't wire it right so the relay would handle the load.

The white plug looks like the brake controller plug.... does your truck have the towing package?

 

i would completely undo the wiring regardless of what you do from here.

 

The switch is likely only rated for 3 amps (pretty standard for aftermarket switches). When you trace the wiring the switch should connect to pin 85 or 86 on the relay. It should not connect to pins 87, 87a, or 30 (no pin 87a if 4-pin relay). You might be better off ripping out the incorrect wiring and starting over.

 

I am likely going to pull it all out.

Does anyone know what the white/green stripe wire is behind the left tray that the aftermarket orange wire is attached to?
Does anyone know what the tiny red/black stripe wire is that the aftermarket blue from the relay is attached to? (the white connector is the big one on top of the other white ones that has the grey colored female receiver)

Tell me if I have this right:
Battery+ flows through fuse then relay to fog lights out the other side. (30 and 87 on relay)
Then, some voltage from instrument cluster (so fogs only come on when headlights are on) flows to switch to then to activate the relay then out to ground. (85 and 86 on relay)

 

Battery positive — 2amp fuse — switch in.

Switch out — relay 85.

Relay 86 — ground/chassis/battery negative.

Battery positive — appropriate fuse for fog lights — relay 30.

Relay 87 — fog lights positive.

Fog lights negative — ground/chassis/battery negative.

If you do a search in this section I’m sure you will find a wiring diagram showing this.

Make sure all you wiring supports a larger current than what the fuse is rated for so the fuse blows before the wiring.

 

Thanks a lot

 

I have an oem switch, now, and bought a relay and installed it. My switch activates the relay. Now, I ask what leg on the switch (edit: not switch; the relay) goes straight to the fog lights? I don’t have my meter on me to check. The reason I ask is that, even though my truck is pre-wired, the previous owner ran the fog+ wire inside the cab to the relay and wiring they set up. If I know what leg to hook to, then I can just run the wire they put straight to that leg and remove everything else aftermarket/extra from the cab. Here is a picture of the relay. If someone knows, can you just tell me what leg viewed from the top of the relay like in my picture?

 

Nevermind, y’all. It’s the top one, or light green wire, in case anyone finds this thread in the future.

 

None of them do. The fog lights should be powered off pin 87 on the relay. Fog lights powered directly from the previous switches are why they failed. Don’t repeat the same mistake.

 

That’s what I meant, the relay. Typing too fast.