OK, so I have been in the industry for awhile (13 years of awhile to be exact) and I would like to think I know my way around automotive lighting. I even had a brief stint at one of the major Korean light bulb companies for a few months.
Lately though, even I have been stumped after running into some weird types of fog light bulbs, such as those on the Mercury Marauder, Mazda MPV, and some other cars.
By official listings, these bulbs are listed as the long metal based H1 bulb. However, by customer description, it sounds like the bulb is actually an H11: 90 degree angle plastic base with an inside plug with narrow connectors and a plastic tab running up about 75% the height of it.
It sounds like a plausible mistake; H11 is a fairly common fog light bulb application and if they put H1 they are 2/3 right. However, upon actual inspection of the bulbs there a few notable differences:
1. The base of the mystery bulb is much smaller than an H11. So small in fact you can insert the entire base into the base of an H11 with room to spare.
2. Inside the base, the metal plugs are vertically oriented in an H11, in mystery bulb, they are horizontal.
3. Whereas the H11 has tabs on the outside of the base at the 3, 6, and 9 o’clock positions, the Marauder mystery bulb only has one tab at the 6 o’clock
4. H11′s have metal lock in tabs (which is actually pretty rare) while mystery bulb has plastic plug in tabs.
5. The glass portion of the bulb on the H11 is a good 1.5″ tall, on marauder the glass is barely half that, with a conspicuous metal portion running the rest of the length of the bulb (much like an H1).
Upon closer inspection, the bulb portion IS an H1…the base portion just serves as a converter base.
So, the solution to the mystery is: H1 bulb + weird Ford/Mercury base.
Here’s the thing. So long as your base is still good (which it hopefully is since the bulb part is usually what goes out), you can replace that bulb with any ol’ halogen H1 bulb you can find, even the color Nokya Arctic White, Yellow, or Purple bulbs.
HID kits would NOT work without some crazy modification to the base to allow the wires for the HID bulb to pass through it. Ditto the Nokya replacement harnesses.
Alternately, for HID, you COULD get all A-Team on it and bypass the plugs all together and just splice wire to wire…though I don’t recommend this unless your last name is MacGuyver.
Worst case though, if you burnt your converter base, there is no aftermarket source I am aware of that has them. You COULD go to the dealer, but I would instead recommend you check the local junkyards instead.
Soon as someone releases something better, you can bet we will carry them.
Till then, tune on
-Homer
