My vehicle does neither have a trailer hitch nor a number of other options but the fuse box has fuses for those features anyway. I'm a little con-fused. 
Fuses for non-existing features
- Thread starter vavavroom
- Start date
Sometimes you will see that to have a reduced number of fuse panel part numbers. There is most likely no pin on the back/underside of the panel so the fuse is just a placeholder.
They could use the same fuse box part and just leave out fuses for options/features a car doesn't have. From a manufacturing standpoint though, I can understand why they don't do that though. A fuse box with every slot filled would be one part #, another with 1 fuse left out will be a different part #, another with a different single fuse left out would be a 3rd part #, and so on.
We see now on a lot of the replacement BCMs or SJBs where there is a note that it is a "universal" replacement and to program accordingly. Same actually with some PCMs, multiple calibration codes will be taken care of with one part number. The technician just uploads the as-built data from OASIS when programming, or else downloads the infor from the previous module before removing.
wemay
Site Donor 2023
Good thread. I learned something here team, thanks.
Why would you be confused ?
It was a play on words, hence the hyphen.
When I was a teen I made my base model Mercury into a Brougham level by going to the junkyard, pulling the parts off the better model and fitting them to mine. All the wiring was there for the electric trunk release (a big thing in the day) on my model. And, $10 was a lot cheaper than the mfgr charged.
The 33 grey slots are slots for fuses in use. The 9 white slots with a symbol are for fuses for not installed/not applicable equipment. The 11 white slots are empty slots.
If you think that I implied that then you made a groundless assumption.
I see watt you did there.
Tapped the seat heater fuse on my camry for my fog lights. It only works with the ignition on, and cuts out when the starter is cranked. If I wanted I could have used the fogs as DRLs. Needless to say, I had no seat heater.
You saw the potential.
Ohmmmm
It's very likely that the wires for what options you do not have are already there but tucked away into the harness. Makes it easy for the dealer to install those items.
GM trucks are like that. The trailer 7pin harness would be capped and tied to the side and the 30A fuse slot for trailer 12v would be left empty.
That's happened to me once. The car had the wiring for the rear fog lights from the factory. I only had to add a fog light switch, a relay, bulbs, and a fuse.
I've seen variations on that, including fuse boxes where there was an unused position, but there weren't any contacts. But the plastic molding was for all versions.
It's a cost reduction measure. Rather than build a completely new harness or fuse box for every level of an optioned vehicle choice ...
They just mass produce a single harness and fuse box layout across all trim levels of a given make and model class. Good example of this:
The all new Corvette C8's have a glow plug indicator light on the dash cluster. It's not used in that specific vehicle at all. But the cluster is used (or going to be) in other vehicles.
My '03 Murano had inactive but present indicators and fuse block positions for missing features as well. I.e. "TPMS" & "Vehicle attitude control- slip indicator".
Those options were pretty much standard in the second half year of production run and came fully populated and optioned. First half year of 1st generation run, it wasn't available but they were forward thinking.
They just mass produce a single harness and fuse box layout across all trim levels of a given make and model class. Good example of this:
The all new Corvette C8's have a glow plug indicator light on the dash cluster. It's not used in that specific vehicle at all. But the cluster is used (or going to be) in other vehicles.
My '03 Murano had inactive but present indicators and fuse block positions for missing features as well. I.e. "TPMS" & "Vehicle attitude control- slip indicator".
Those options were pretty much standard in the second half year of production run and came fully populated and optioned. First half year of 1st generation run, it wasn't available but they were forward thinking.
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