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Headlights - new xenon bulbs or new units?

Mrbottomend

Active Member
Joined
Apr 11, 2019
Messages
232
Location
U.K. SOUTH
Car
CLK 320 CDI Sport
I am not happy with the headlights on my '09 CLK Coupe...the light performance is particularly poor low beam and not great coverage in high. I have had new good quality Halogen bulbs fitted, but still not great.

Understand can either fit new aftermarket units, possibly around £350 to 450 a pair, or poss fit Xenon bulbs at about £60 to £70, which am advised would be good.

Basically any advice of the merits of the two approaches or not. If use new aftermarket units assume some potential for non-compatibility? Or is there a supplier/brand that can be trusted to go in seamlessly?

If bulbs only, would love to know best options please

Quite fancy a new pair for day running lights but of course that would not be original equipment (some black housing ones that look quite cool available bt not sure as poss also bling blingy).

Anyhow any and all help appreciated!

Otherwise going well except needed a bit of work at PCS recently...drives like a dream at now 118k miles.
 
Osram Nightbreaker Laser are the go to upgrade bulbs - much less hassle than fitting bi-xenon units with all of the hassle of self levelling & washers that would need to be fitted.
Cheers. Will take a look. Was tod that could go Xenon bulbs at around £60 - £70. Anyone know lowdown on those? i.e. right ones to fit to avoid bulb errors on dash/controls probs and if can be just replaced as is? want to look at the comparison though see the sram are part xenon filled.
 
Ordered the Osrams after a bit more reading and hope they will make the diff. Managed to get for 23.18 a pair and gone for both low and high beam bulbs. Ta for tip.
 
You can convert the front fogs to act as drls (with led bulbs) without too much trouble and keep the oem look.
 
You can convert the front fogs to act as drls (with led bulbs) without too much trouble and keep the oem look.

Cheers. Can you or anyone else explain how this done, what bulbs etc? Am bit unsure how this would work as in keeping the fogs on to act as drls? Does this not mean that the rears are on also? Or am I being dumbo...

Ta much!
 
Cheers. Can you or anyone else explain how this done, what bulbs etc? Am bit unsure how this would work as in keeping the fogs on to act as drls? Does this not mean that the rears are on also? Or am I being dumbo...

Ta much!
Front and rear foglights always come on separately. Fronts will always come on before rears.
 
When you get them make sure they are not fakes if they are that cheap OSRAM Trust Program | OSRAM Automotive
There has been a lot of fakes going around.

Can confirm they check out via the Osram Trust site, which is great so if anyone else looking for what I think is best or near best deal on them can recommend, and they arrived next day even though paid for 2 -3 days so good service there too!

Repeat linky

the_stop_shop_uk on eBay

Going to fit today so let's see how good. Suspect the headlamp units could do with bit of better polish up than I managed though. Although not bad, may still have some gain if redone a tad better. Hoping good gain anyway. Will report back general view i.e as opposed to anything too scientific.
 
Front and rear foglights always come on separately. Fronts will always come on before rears.
aha...soz..thought mine came on together on the switch...hardly ever used so maybe just never familiarised...cheers!
 
Be interested to hear how you get on. I put Nightbreakers into our Hyundai i10 and it was like night and day (ha ha). Made a huge difference. They will have a reduced lifetime though. Ours go about every two years (on the third set now) and when one goes it tends to take the other out at the same time. I keep a spare pair around as inevitably they will go at a vital time.
Make sure you do not touch the bulb glass with your fingers as localized grease will reduce their lifetime dramatically (and its not great anyway). Use gloves or kitchen roll.
Overall, well worth the reduced lifetime because the difference is huge.
 
Cheers. Can you or anyone else explain how this done, what bulbs etc? Am bit unsure how this would work as in keeping the fogs on to act as drls? Does this not mean that the rears are on also? Or am I being dumbo...

Ta much!

I did a 'howto' a while back for my clk. Shouldn't be massively different for others... This 'howto' is a simple way of converting foglights on a w203/209 to DRLs To give a more 'modern' look, I used LED bulbs - on the A209 these were H7. Get the best ones you can. My vehicle had AMG styling - this meant that there was a plug/socket within 3 inches of the foglight. This made the overall install simple. Black wiring was used throughout as this hides better than coloured wiring. A dimmer unit was bought from E-Bay - a search on E-Bay for ‘DRL dimmer’ will throw up several. Start on the nearside. On the 209 the foglamps are accessed from a panel under the lamp. Drop this down to remove the bulb. The small grill held in with three small Torx screws should be removed to make access easier. The bulb and holder rotate around 45 degrees. Note the position of the holder when it is released as it is not obvious how it goes when it is refitted. Disconnect at the connector and remove. Remove the existing incandescent bulb, make up a couple of fly leads, connect them to the bulbs and splice into the existing vehicle wiring. There is no need to observe polarity. Locate the bulb where any heat generated will not damage anything. I hung it from the headlamp washer pipe where is was secure, but not touching anything. Test that the bulb illuminates when you turn the foglights on. All of the above is to defeat the bulb failure circuit without adding resistors etc. The bulb will light up if you lock/unlock the car or turn the foglights on and can be seen through the small grille but does not cause dazzle or distraction. I think the diamond pattern looks quite nice . You can of course put resistors there but there is little to be gained. Now splice into the short fly leads from the bulb holder. run one cable to earth - you can use the earth on the vehicle harness - this is the brown wire, or a convenient ground stud. The other cable should be long enough to reach the headlights on the other side.. As an LED is polarity sensitive, ensure that the correct polarity is observed - you can test by touching the end of the long wire against a live point - horn (ignition on) or lights (lights on) Once tested replace the bulb holder with the LED bulb in the foglight. Ensure that this is fitted correctly as water will get in if it isn’t. Route the cable to the offside - I routed mine behind the spoiler with some cable clips. Now do the same for the offside foglamp. On the 209 it is then easy to route the wires up behind the offside headlamp. Now fit the dimmer unit according to its own instructions. You will need an earth - use an earth stud, there will be one on the flitch panel, a sidelight feed - you can tap into this without removing the headlamp bulb cover - the wire will be grey with a tracer (red or black iirc), the wires to your DRL bulbs, and an ignition feed. To get this, run the wire from the dimmer unit alongside the existing harness to the fusebox/SAM located up by the wiper linkage. There are a number of entry/exit points you can push the wire through. If you use black wire it will hide well. Locate an ignition live in the fusebox/SAM this could be the horn fuse using a piggyback fuse (Halfords), or in my case because space was tight in there, I used a feed from an unused relay that became live with ignition on. Test with a testlight and it’s simple to put in an inline fuse. I don’t need to stress too strongly that an appropriate fuse (say 5 amps) should protect this circuit at the fusebox. Now test it all. DRLs should be on with ignition, and go dim with sidelights. Old foglight bulbs will shine through the grilles when locking/unlocking or if front foglights are turned on. The dimmer unit can now be ty-rapped to the harness and pushed under the slam panel - out of sight and out of any water and crud. Last job is to put everything back, make good, ty-rap all wires, and bask in the warm glow of a job well done (and a single malt).

any questions, feel free to ask :)


Edit: quick vid to show them dimming with sidelights.

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Last edited:
I did a 'howto' a while back for my clk. Shouldn't be massively different for others... This 'howto' is a simple way of converting foglights on a w203/209 to DRLs To give a more 'modern' look, I used LED bulbs -

WOW. thanks. will take a look a this in detail when can. Seems interesting option. Much appreciated!
 
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Be interested to hear how you get on. I put Nightbreakers into our Hyundai i10 and it was like night and day (ha ha). Made a huge difference. They will have a reduced lifetime though. Ours go about every two years (on the third set now) and when one goes it tends to take the other out at the same time. I keep a spare pair around as inevitably they will go at a vital time.
Make sure you do not touch the bulb glass with your fingers as localized grease will reduce their lifetime dramatically (and its not great anyway). Use gloves or kitchen roll.
Overall, well worth the reduced lifetime because the difference is huge.

Well definite improvement, but still not happy.

Think going to get the units checked over and see if new or tip top second hand replacements may be good idea or quick and easy cheap fixes to improve further.

I do seem to get a lot of condensation in the units. Also suspect lenses could do with another going over to achieve better finish as despite a try at clearing they still appear to have a fair amount of surface damage, or replace.

But yes, am seeing some improvement, so thanks for the tip off!
 
Hi,
I had issues with my CLS55 Bi-Xenons I felt they were very poor.
As you I cleaned up the lenses an fitted new Osram Xenons lamps, I also took the car to a local MOT station and asked them to check the headlight alignment, and got them to raise the height of the headlights till they would fail the MOT and then lower them till they just passed.
This made the most difference and it made the headlight performance acceptable.
 
What is the conditions of the 'glass' front of the headlamp like?

I see plenty of Mercs of this vintage starting to suffer yellowing and frosting of the actual lamp outer. It's polycarbonate I believe on many, and I sorted this very cheaply on my own w203.

Or are they nice and clear?
 
Surely putting LEDs in your foglights makes them pretty useless as foglights? I was also under the impression that is now an MoT fail to replace halogens with xenons.
 

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