J11 7pin towbar wiring

ICE, Equipment, Options
Nuckingfuts
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Qashqai Model: Mk.2 Qashqai - J11 (2013–2017)

Post by Nuckingfuts »

I’ve just finished wiring my Universal towbar electrics using the the stock pre-installed towbar electrics that are fitted in the j11. I didn’t want to fork out £60+ on a dedicated wiring kit so I bought a cheaper universal kit for £25 which came with a bypass relay. After doing a bit of research I found that the j11 has pre installed electrics for towbars (That the dedicated kit fits to) and thus removing the need to install a bypass relay and a live wire from the battery though to the boot. The white 6pin plug is located behind the carpet on the left-hand side of the boot and is reasonably easy to access by removing a couple of bits. I tested the connections and identified the following wires-

Orange- 12v (constant power when car on+running)
Grey- l/h indicator
Red- lights
Yellow- brake lights
Green- reverse
Purple- r/h indicator

There is also a brown plug with a looped wire that I assume is the fog light feed. (I didn’t use this as my Thule bike rack doesn’t cover that much of the lights) i suppose you could just tap the blue fog light cable onto that looped wire and have both trailer and car fog lights working at the same time or I would imagine it would be pretty simple to wire up a changeover relay into that loop that could switch between car and trailer fog lights when the trailer electrics are connected. Maybe use the white earth from the 7pin towbar cable as an energiser feed for the changeover relay? (Don’t quote me on that as I’m not too knowledgeable on electrics)

I ended up wiring both tail light wires from the 7pin towbar plug (brown and black) into the red wire on the stock plug. I also couldn’t think of a way to wire the reverse light as the 7pin cable from the towbar plug doesn’t have a dedicated reverse cable, only 13pin electrics have dedicated reverse light function. So I wired in the blue fog light cable into the green(reverse) on the stock plug and swapped over the light covers on my bike rack so the ‘fog’ light is now the clear reverse light. I have no fog light on the bike rack now but the one on the car is clearly visible and if someone can’t see the back of the car with all this lit up then they shouldn’t be on the road. I would rather have the reverse light set up. The rest is pretty straight forward. I didn’t use the 12v constant supply as not needed on a bike rack.
All the lights except the fog work perfectly on my bike rack. I know it’s a legal requirement to have fog lights on a trailer, but my bike rack doesn’t obscure the cars fog lights that much and as far as I know, 7pin electrics are not tested on MOT’s, 13pin electrics are.
I just switch off the reverse sensors using the switch on the dash.

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calnorth
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Post by calnorth »

Interesting that the manufacturer left a useful socket. Can we assume you meet the trailer 7 Pin (12 N type) version...more or less? (pinouts)

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Nuckingfuts
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Qashqai Model: Mk.2 Qashqai - J11 (2013–2017)

Post by Nuckingfuts »

Yup, pretty much. The only changes I made was to wire brown and black 12n wires (RH tail and LH tail) together as there was no separate output on the cars socket, the red wire on the socket output did both sides.
Also the blue 12n (fog light) is wired into the reverse on the cars socket as I preferred to have reverse lights on the bike rack over fog lights as fog lights are hardly ever used and still reasonably visible with bikes loaded
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calnorth
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Post by calnorth »

Nuckingfuts wrote: Sun Oct 04, 2020 9:29 am Yup, pretty much. The only changes I made was to wire brown and black 12n wires (RH tail and LH tail) together as there was no separate output on the cars socket, the red wire on the socket output did both sides.
Also the blue 12n (fog light) is wired into the reverse on the cars socket as I preferred to have reverse lights on the bike rack over fog lights as fog lights are hardly ever used and still reasonably visible with bikes loaded
ok...I think the separation of the LH/RH tail lights is a safety thing. In that if one bulb blows the other is likely still operational...to be seen at night of course.

Anyway, thanks for posting the info...v. interesting.
Mk2 Qashqai Facelift - J11b (2017–and onward)
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Nuckingfuts
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Post by Nuckingfuts »

calnorth wrote: Sun Oct 04, 2020 9:41 am
Nuckingfuts wrote: Sun Oct 04, 2020 9:29 am Yup, pretty much. The only changes I made was to wire brown and black 12n wires (RH tail and LH tail) together as there was no separate output on the cars socket, the red wire on the socket output did both sides.
Also the blue 12n (fog light) is wired into the reverse on the cars socket as I preferred to have reverse lights on the bike rack over fog lights as fog lights are hardly ever used and still reasonably visible with bikes loaded
ok...I think the separation of the LH/RH tail lights is a safety thing. In that if one bulb blows the other is likely still operational...to be seen at night of course.

Anyway, thanks for posting the info...v. interesting.
Both have a separate power feed so if one bulb blew, the other would still work, it’s just both power feeds wire into the same switched source. Only a blown fuse would cause both to fail.
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calnorth
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Post by calnorth »

Nuckingfuts wrote: Sun Oct 04, 2020 9:54 am
calnorth wrote: Sun Oct 04, 2020 9:41 am
Nuckingfuts wrote: Sun Oct 04, 2020 9:29 am Yup, pretty much. The only changes I made was to wire brown and black 12n wires (RH tail and LH tail) together as there was no separate output on the cars socket, the red wire on the socket output did both sides.
Also the blue 12n (fog light) is wired into the reverse on the cars socket as I preferred to have reverse lights on the bike rack over fog lights as fog lights are hardly ever used and still reasonably visible with bikes loaded
ok...I think the separation of the LH/RH tail lights is a safety thing. In that if one bulb blows the other is likely still operational...to be seen at night of course.

Anyway, thanks for posting the info...v. interesting.
Both have a separate power feed so if one bulb blew, the other would still work, it’s just both power feeds wire into the same switched source. Only a blown fuse would cause both to fail.
I've had a quick scan of the cars own powering of lights, in particular Tail Lamps. For both Halogen and LED systems, power for the Tail lamps (and many other lights) is supplied via IPDM. No fuses. Switching is via a dedicated CPU to individual LH/RH Smart FET's and on to individual Bulbs/Leds.

More unnecessary complexity I'd say...for a car.
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calnorth
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Post by calnorth »

calnorth wrote: Sun Oct 04, 2020 10:38 am
Nuckingfuts wrote: Sun Oct 04, 2020 9:54 am
calnorth wrote: Sun Oct 04, 2020 9:41 am

ok...I think the separation of the LH/RH tail lights is a safety thing. In that if one bulb blows the other is likely still operational...to be seen at night of course.

Anyway, thanks for posting the info...v. interesting.
Both have a separate power feed so if one bulb blew, the other would still work, it’s just both power feeds wire into the same switched source. Only a blown fuse would cause both to fail.
I've had a quick scan of the cars own powering of lights, in particular Tail Lamps. For both Halogen and LED systems, power for the Tail lamps (and many other lights) is supplied via IPDM. No fuses. Switching is via a dedicated CPU to individual LH/RH Smart FET's and on to individual Bulbs/Leds.

More unnecessary complexity I'd say...for a car. Too much silicon and many logic gates between us and the lamp itself.
Mk2 Qashqai Facelift - J11b (2017–and onward)
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Nuckingfuts
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Qashqai Model: Mk.2 Qashqai - J11 (2013–2017)

Post by Nuckingfuts »

So it’s done with voltage change? Maybe that is something that the dedicated towbar harness can identify and translate to power each individual light
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calnorth
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Post by calnorth »

Nuckingfuts wrote: Sun Oct 04, 2020 12:11 pm So it’s done with voltage change? Maybe that is something that the dedicated towbar harness can identify and translate to power each individual light
Yes...with a whole bunch of self protection. Not that we'll be able to source such a SMART FET. I think there are about 10 of them in IPDM controlling all lighting functions. Switching from the lighting stalk is via BCM and CAN Bus to IDPM to lights.

J11 SMART FET example: (ESD = Electrostatic Protection)

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Nuckingfuts
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Post by Nuckingfuts »

Finally used the bike rack last night. Lights work perfectly and added bonus was the car recognised the plug was in use (even with my hack wiring) and notified me that the racks indicators were working with a flashing dash Icon. Shame it didn’t automatically turn the reverse sensors off. Still have to switch them off manually.
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