At 9500 miles on my 07 HHR we had our first problem. The right side fog light burned out. So I wnet to Auto Aone to get a replacement bulb and, of course, they didn't have one. Not only did they not have one the Sylvania 9140 OEM buld wasn't even in the computer.

So I just started looking at the bulbs they had in stock and noticed that the Sylvania 9005 looked indentical to the 9140. The only diference is the 9005 is a 65 watt bulb and the 9140 OEM is 37 watts. I bought two 9005 and they fit perfectly. The only thing is that the 9005 are brighter but, I don't view that as a bad thing.


In short the Sylvania 9005 will fit in the fog ligths replacing the OEM 9140.

9140 = 37 watts
9005 = 65 watts

 

9140 & 9145 (H10) bulbs are the recommended replacement bulbs for the foglights.

The 9005 bulb you put in is actually a high beam headlight bulb. Don't be surprised if you get pulled over and given a ticket for having too bright lights.

Excess heat might also be an issue in the foglight enclosures since you are running a higher wattage bulb than it was designed for.

 

I've thought about it and I'm more worried the heat then a ticket. I'm thinking that the housing would have been heat tested well beyond the oem bulb but who knows.

As for a getting a ticket, from what I know about the law, tickets for lighting is based on position not brightness. If the fogs are mounted right and shooting at a downward angle then what does it matter how bright they are.

 

I used to have a friend with a 56 Chevy that had bumper mounted fog lights on it. He put aircraft landing lights in the housings. When you turned those suckers on at night it was like daytime. In fact I was with him once during the daylight and the car ahead was wouldn't get out of his way and when he flipped on the fogs the guy drove off the road trying to get away from them. Later he was seen by a local sheriff who not only gave him a ticket but made them inoperable with his night stick.

 

I'm curious how he wired up 24v aircraft landing lights to a '56 Chevy....

 

There are 12V landing lights available.
Police here use them in their spotlights.

 

But that would be no different that using 12v off road lights. IE, spotlights.

 

Well it's been a couple of weeks and I thought I'd report on the bulbs. The fog lights are brighter then the low beams and really light things up. I have had no issue with cops and no one has flashed there high beams at me yet. I looked at the housing last night and there doesn't seem to be an issue with heat either. My wife drives the car every day and leaves well before sun-up and we have been out at night 3 or 4 times in the past 2 weeks.

The only down side is the fog light lens gets pretty hot but, there doesn't appear to be any dameage from it.

 

Have you driven oncoming to your HHR to see what they look like?

 

No, but that's a good idea.