Those of you with the iconic Mini fog lights: Are those not traditional fog lights which shine light lower and forward down the road, overlapping slightly with the beams from your headlights? I've been doing a little research on the 2022 integrated headlight situation, and, from what I can tell, the 'bad weather lights' and the cornering lights are the same thing. Hitting the bad weather light button simply turns on both cornering lights, illuminating the ground to the left and right of the Mini. I have not driven in dark, bad weather yet, but I'm not sure how useful these will be in that situation. I'll have to take a night drive on a deserted road and see if they provide any additional forward illumination. To be fair, the regular headlights are so good I'm not sure supplemental lighting is needed, anyway. But the 'bad weather light' almost seems like a marketing ploy.
I don't believe fog lights were ever meant to illuminate forward down the road. Their intended purpose is to illuminate close to the front of the car in a wide pattern to help with visibility of the road lines in heavy fog and bad weather. That wide beam pattern is functionally equivalent to "cornering" lights so it makes sense to me to have them be the same thing (and I came to the same conclusion that the cornering/bad weather lights are the same light source) For what it's worth, when I tested them the bad weather/cornering lights did exactly what I expected and did illuminate a noticably wider area.
I've been waiting since last August for some fog to test out the fog lights on my 2021 SE, but it hasn't happened yet. I'm skeptical they would make a big difference. Perhaps 2022 SE owners can take comfort in knowing that the front-wheel air-curtain slots that replaced the fog lights may be responsible for the additional 4 miles of EPA range the new model achieves. I like the more traditional look of the 2020/21 fog lights on my SE. In 2019, I wrote to MINI's head of design, Oliver Heilmer, begging him to persuade MINI to take the extra $1,500 I was offering to get the less-expensive, scoopless MINI Cooper (non-S) bonnet. In that letter, hoping to butter him up a bit, I included a close-up photo of the fog-light part of the front fascia that I captured from the 'net. I told him that little area achieved near perfection in design. Now I laugh whenever I think about that letter because at that point he certainly had already approved the design of the functional slots that replaced the lovely fog lights.
I can attest from personal experience the 2021 fog lights make a huge difference, and they're not the same as the cornering lights. I live in an area where I regularly get dense fog with visibility measured in tens of feet, depending on the season and drought conditions. Which is why I so badly want working rear fog lights. My first MINI had a single rear fog light. I guess I never considered until now I could try modifying my SE to disable one of the existing (unused) rear fog lights and install the necessary switch to activate them. I'm skeptical the "bad weather lights" would work as well, because I don't know if they'd point down enough to avoid reflecting too much off the fog. That's something that would have to be tested. Not sure how much foggy weather Germany gets, but the UK is notorious for it.
I don't think the roughly 1ft difference in height between the bad weather lights (at the bottom of the headlight assembly) and the 2021 fog light location would make too much difference in performance. The beam pattern and downward angle should matter much more than the height. That said, the separate unit could* have better performance just because there are less space/design restrictions. (*If designed well and not limited by cost. With an integrated design, more of the cost can be put towards performance) For your rear fog lights, they can be programmed with Bimmercode. This thread set them to activate with the brake lights but it might be possible to tie them to the front fog switch.
I could maybe try tying them to the front fog lights, because for true rear fog lights it requires replacing the light switch (I've tracked down the replacement part) and doing some Bimmercode programming. But I discovered it's illegal to have dual red rear fog lights in the US, which are required in Europe and are installed and fully functional minus the switch in the North American models.
"Officer [fill in name from nametag], allow me to compliment you on being one of the rare NHTSA scholars who would notice such a thing on a foggy night like this! I'll talk to my dealer about this standards violation at my earliest opportunity."
Because the US sucks at keeping laws updated with technology... We also can't get the fancy anti-dazzle headlights or side mirror cameras
I think there's some silly notion in the US that dual red rear fog lights would be mistaken for brake lights. Whereas Europe realizes the safety benefits of being able to see a vehicle in front of you in the fog. I don't just use the rear fog lights in fog, they're also a good safety feature during low-visibility events such as blizzards, torrential downpours, and sandstorms.
