Has anyone installed the extra light kit from Saab P/N 400107322? Feedback?

[Brad Lauzze]

Like the title says, I'm just looking for feedback on the install of the extra light or "Moose light" kit (P/N 400107322) as it's called in the Nordic Markets and if you have installed the harness/switch, what lights did you go with and where did you get them, how well they work, price etc..? I've got a friend in Florida who has the same kit and recommended KC HiLites which I guess are basically xenon rally lights, but are on the pricey side.

[rpiereck]

They are called Moose Lights in Alaska too, but there they are usually Lightforce lights. Very popular with the little penis crowd (the guys witrh lifted trucks, etc). If you need them (upstate NY I say you probably do) they are great. I would spend the extra $$$ for the lightforce, they have the colored stone shields that help a lot in inclement weather.

OT, do they salt the roads in upstate NY?

[Brad Lauzze]

Yeah, I want them because there are a ton of deer where I live and I do a lot of night driving on back roads. And yes, they do salt the roads pretty heavily here.

[rpiereck]

And yes, they do salt the roads pretty heavily here.

Back in Alaska they don't salt the road (great!) but what they do is spread gravel all over, which does wonders for your windshield and paint job (Still better than rust!). The reason they give for not salting the roads is two-fold: one, it gets cold enough in AK to freeze salt water, point taken. And two, moose are much like cows, they are attracted to salt, so spreading salt on the roads would only invite Bullwinkle to take a break on a highway to lick some tasty road, while a car or truck careens towards it at 70 mph in a slippery road. Not good.

I hate road salt, I am dealing with that now here in Germany.

[Brad Lauzze]

Yeah, they cake it on pretty thick here. Sucks unfortunately. I went ahead and bought the accessory wiring kit from a dealer in Sweden, once that arrives, I'll make a final decision on what lights I'm gonna use. Lots of new wiring going into the '04 between this and adding the rear heated seats..

[Lex Andrews]

What have you had to do to add the Rear Heated Seats, mine doesn't have the fuse setup for it. I've had some major bad experience with adding things in wiring looms.

[droy]

Brad - any update on what you ended up doing with the light kit. Also price and any pictures?

Thanks

Doug in NJ

[Brad Lauzze]

Doug, the kit I bought from Saab is only a direct bolt-on accessory for the '99-'01 cars (the mounting brackets will not fit the face-lifted front end like you and I have, even though there is a space in the underhood electrical center labeled 'long range lights'.) I ended up running the harness to the H7 bulbs (the 'flash to pass' bulbs) inset of the Xenon units which I replaced with Philips CrystalVision bulbs. You can achieve the same affect by the doing the 'relay jumper mod' but with this kit I can now control the amount of light I want.

I had already gone in with the Tech 2 and changed my fog light variant to the Alternative 1 setting which allows the fog lights to remain on with the high beams. The kit comes with a dash switch the goes right under the front fog light switch in the dash panel and when pushed, the extra lights (in this case the H7s) will come on when you cycle the high beams on, so that you have the Xenons high beam set-up, foglights, and the H7s (a big improvement in forward visibility.)

I did realize that having all the forward lights is not the best for heavy snow, the light reflects way too much and visibility sucks, so being able to shut off the H7s via the serparate switch/relay, and still have the high beams/fogs is nice.


The kit itself was $120 with my Saab employee discount from Saab in Sweden and I paid $30-$40 for the Phillips CrystalVision bulbs.

On an unrelated note, how did you make out with fitting the remus exhaust to your '04?

[shortlid]

Any one tied, just wiring in larger more powerful lites fed off the stock fog light wires?? I am in New Hampshire, and Moose strikes are a big issue up here!

[rpiereck]

If you want powerful lights for moose visibility you want them over the bumper, or even better on a roof rack cross bar over the driver. If you choose to use the stock wiring harness that can be done too, just re-route the wires.

The problem is if you use new lights that are a lot more powerful than the stock, you might be pushing the old wires to their limits, and either you're going to fry a wire, burn a lot of fuses or just get poor light output from your new lights that should be brighter. The stock H3 fog light bulbs are rated to 55 watt, if your new light requires 85 watt, for example, that's already over 50% more power required to run through the old stock wires.

One easy way to remedy this and still use the stock wires is to have the stock wires going to a relay instead of a light, then on the other side of that relay you can run new, thicker and better wires that will handle the power demand of a newer, more powerful light. With a steup like that you can run very strong lights and get excellent output.

In Alaska everybody swore by Lightforce lights for moose avoidance, and their light output is trememdous, with very clear, defined illumination. Not cheap. On my Jeep I had good old Hella 500 but I had uprated 85 Watt bulbs, plus the extra relay and wires as I outlined.