Extra Brakelight Modification Instructions

By popular demand a couple of us have created extra brake light mod instructions. They detail how you can turn your unused rear fog lights into two new rear brake lights. It’s by far the cheapest mod you can make to your MINI (and one that greatly improves your visibility to others).

Some background: In Europe there are what is called rear fog lights. The idea is that they try to prevent the multi car pile-ups you see on highways when the fog is very thick. As many of you know the empty slot in the toggle switch row is filled with the rear fog light switch everywhere in the world but the US. For some reason it’s been determined that we don’t need rear fog lights. In fact there is an online petition for them to offer the lights as a retro fit kit on all MINIs.

Regardless a enterprising US MINI owner realized that the two rear fog light bulbs we’re actually still in the US MINI. So he decided to make an electrical jumper and turn those unused bulbs into extra brake lights. Both bulbs are the exact same wattage so they light up at essentially the same brightness. What has been found out since is that this change can be made simply with a paperclip and electrical tape. It’s a good solution for those that don’t want to do something permanent to their car. Of course soldering the connection with a real jumper is the best solution if you have the time and know how.

You can download the instructional PDF here. Thanks to Steve for doing the work and Michael for donating the MCS.

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