Hi All and thanks for this great forum!!
Knowledge shared is knowedge gained and multiplied manyfold.
I am a new owner of a 2001 S40. Excellent condition vehicle and a beautifull banana or butter yellow color hence the user name
Volvo is for the wife to drive the 200 mile journey to Portland, OR this summer to visit with daughter and two grandchildren. I am trying to improve the night time light situation as much as I can so she will be as safe as possible for the trips. I have changed the low beams to HID 6000K but also wanted to add the fog/driving lights to better increase nightime visibillity. Did not come equipped with fog lights but only hole covers in bumper. Since I had this handy switch on the dash below the headlight switch with foglight appearance and dash light came on to indicate this choice and prewired lights at the bumper I just assumed that you could add OE foglights in the opening and everything would work. Bought foglights that were OE fit but discovered that switch on the dash turned on a "rear" fog light by illuminating the left rear brake light.
Seriously!! Who needs a REAR FOG LIGHT!!! If it is that foggy you should turn off the car and go back inside house to watch a Fraiser rerun!!!
Anyway, my question is, can I purchase the headlight switch assembly with the left side mounted front fog light button and actually get front fog lights or will I be in for any other surprises?? I can do this for $80 from Tasca but would like to know if this will work?? I would like to keep the system OEM and not hack in a toggle switch on the dash to run the fogs.

 

You would have to get into the dash panel and see if the wiring harness is there for that switch and make sure there's power going thru that wiring harness when the low beams are turned on. If there is power and you have the connectors at the front bumper then you should be able to add the switch pack and lights.

 

I'd have to look it up for the old S40s, but I think there is programming for the CEM that is involved

 

The wiring is there but you have to see the dealer to program the lights to work.

 

Thank you very much for the information !!
I had the feeling that the vehicle was prewired but would have never guessed that it would need to be programed by the dealer to recognize the fact that foglights needed to be activated for operation.
One last question on this if I may.
I was getting some info from Hudini in another thread about a repair manual and he recommended the VIDA dvd as well as a DICE unit to utilize the manual as well as provide interaction with the vehicle. Will this DICE unit enable me to activate the foglights myself ? Perhaps even enable getting some keyless remotes and programming to operate???
Sounds like the Volvo DICE is the equivilent of Mazda IDS in performing factory level comunication and repair from what I can gather so far.

 

On the S40, I think fog lights are just a changeable setting in the CEM, so activating them would be possible with those eBay copies of VIDA. Key programming will not work because you need a software download. Not sure if you can perform them with an illegal copy using the Order for Outside Workshop download feature.