Years ago, I grabbed a generic set of ebay fog lights and put them on my car. Not too much later, one of them got hit by a rock pretty bad. I ended up being saved by an HCF member who had a spare set of just the fogs. I replaced both and didn't look back.

Well, years later one of them burned out and I just ignored it until today. I decided to put in some Sylvania H3's for a fresh look. What I found was really stupid, honestly.

Here are two different fog lights. They look the same (minus the rock chipped rusty bits).


Even from the back side, they're pretty much identical.


But, how does the phrase go? "It's what's on the inside that counts!"


They're similar, of course. One white wire, one black wire. Both are 55 watt H3 bulbs. But there is one major difference. One set is not as easy to swap bulbs.



The one on the left has a sleeve on it that covers the plug you would expect for an H3 bulb. The other one does not. In fact, it doesn't even have a freaking connector. The wire goes straight to the plug.



This made my day even more frustrating because not only did I have to pull off my whole bumper to replace just one bulb (due to some shoddy work at a body shop... couldn't just pull the bezel and unscrew the housing itself...), but I also had to cut the wire, track down my crimping tool, and crimp a connector onto the wire so I could actually plug a replacement bulb onto the line. (And in the process I somehow managed to break the wire off the ground connector, then break the white wire off the plug to the main harness, and then had to crimp both back together. Then I managed to blow the fuse in the fuse block that ties the power together somehow...)

TL;DR - ebay fog lights killed my inner child. Buyer beware.

 

Having been through similar issues on some second-hand cars of my own, I feel your pain, but I laughed long and hard at this sentence!

 

lol, this is also why not to drink monster energy drinks when messing with delicate electrical connections That stuff gives me the shakes!