I posted before about hating the single back-up light and the frequent explanations that I don't actually have a tail light out, so I bought a UK-market RHD left hand tail light housing and fitted it to my Euro-market LHD car. Here's the story.
I was searching eBay UK for a good long while for a passenger (left) side tail light assembly for a MK7 fortwo coupe Passion. The 2004-2006 cars are MK7 in Europe, which differ from the other Marks of the 450-generation. Also the cabrio lights are different than the coupe, and the Pure has different lenses (orange center pods). The Pulse had smoked lenses, but that might not be true on MK7s. Anyway, I finally got a used one from a seller that would ship to the USA.
This is the light that I'm replacing:
![]()
Truthfully you only need 2 RHD-spec parts, The lens and the reflector. If you can get them, you're fine. I didn't have the part numbers, but you can see them here:
![]()
![]()
The lens has the clear bottom pod instead of the red. The reflector is actually different also, you can see a side-by-side comparison below of the UK reverse unit on the left and our Euro rear-fog unit on the right. The differences are minute, and you could probably get away with leaving the stock one, but for the sake of congruity I switched them. The stock right hand unit on our LHD cars match the left one that came in the UK car.
![]()
![]()
So then you need to take off and disassemble your tail lights, which you can read about here on Evilution.co.uk - Evilution - Smart Car Encyclopaedia
When you unplug your wires, they'll look like these, left and right:
![]()
![]()
Notice that there are two little red and yellow wires also in there - these are to the rear G&K side marker lights, and are tied into the tail and ground sockets.
Also, don't be shocked, these are not drugs. They look like bags of cocaine, but they're some kind of foam. In bags.
![]()
I made this diagram based on the one from Evilution (theirs is actually backwards, I mentioned it to him before and I'll have to email him again now that I've verified it definitively). Anyway, I drew it to reflect the G&K cars. The additional wire is the one you'll need to run to tie the two reverse lights together. Easiest way is to cut the fog wire and splice the ends together.
![]()
Getting these little clippy connectors out of the plug can be a challenge. (I had to do a bunch because I accidentally yanked out the marker light wires). They're tiny, and they have a little clip that you'll need to depress with a safety-pin or something while pulling. I stripped the end of the grey/red wire and soldered the new wire near the connector, so had to remove it. You may not need to remove the connectors though if you splice it higher up.
![]()
So running the wire is also kind of tough. I decided to run it behind the trunk side panels and below the carpet behind the engine, so I followed these instructions to remove the panels - Evilution - Smart Car Encyclopaedia. Be careful, because I actually broke a clip off each of them, and I was careful... But they're fine. Just don't be shocked if something kind of breaks. Also on that page you can see the hole that all the wires come through - this is where I ran mine, it's the only place unless you drill through your tridion.
CONTINUED IN NEXT POST
I was searching eBay UK for a good long while for a passenger (left) side tail light assembly for a MK7 fortwo coupe Passion. The 2004-2006 cars are MK7 in Europe, which differ from the other Marks of the 450-generation. Also the cabrio lights are different than the coupe, and the Pure has different lenses (orange center pods). The Pulse had smoked lenses, but that might not be true on MK7s. Anyway, I finally got a used one from a seller that would ship to the USA.
This is the light that I'm replacing:
Truthfully you only need 2 RHD-spec parts, The lens and the reflector. If you can get them, you're fine. I didn't have the part numbers, but you can see them here:
The lens has the clear bottom pod instead of the red. The reflector is actually different also, you can see a side-by-side comparison below of the UK reverse unit on the left and our Euro rear-fog unit on the right. The differences are minute, and you could probably get away with leaving the stock one, but for the sake of congruity I switched them. The stock right hand unit on our LHD cars match the left one that came in the UK car.
So then you need to take off and disassemble your tail lights, which you can read about here on Evilution.co.uk - Evilution - Smart Car Encyclopaedia
When you unplug your wires, they'll look like these, left and right:
Notice that there are two little red and yellow wires also in there - these are to the rear G&K side marker lights, and are tied into the tail and ground sockets.
Also, don't be shocked, these are not drugs. They look like bags of cocaine, but they're some kind of foam. In bags.
I made this diagram based on the one from Evilution (theirs is actually backwards, I mentioned it to him before and I'll have to email him again now that I've verified it definitively). Anyway, I drew it to reflect the G&K cars. The additional wire is the one you'll need to run to tie the two reverse lights together. Easiest way is to cut the fog wire and splice the ends together.
Getting these little clippy connectors out of the plug can be a challenge. (I had to do a bunch because I accidentally yanked out the marker light wires). They're tiny, and they have a little clip that you'll need to depress with a safety-pin or something while pulling. I stripped the end of the grey/red wire and soldered the new wire near the connector, so had to remove it. You may not need to remove the connectors though if you splice it higher up.
So running the wire is also kind of tough. I decided to run it behind the trunk side panels and below the carpet behind the engine, so I followed these instructions to remove the panels - Evilution - Smart Car Encyclopaedia. Be careful, because I actually broke a clip off each of them, and I was careful... But they're fine. Just don't be shocked if something kind of breaks. Also on that page you can see the hole that all the wires come through - this is where I ran mine, it's the only place unless you drill through your tridion.
CONTINUED IN NEXT POST
