W220 Headlamp Lens Removal

[design guru]

I have a S320 cdi W220 2001.

I few months back I had a broken clamp on my turbo and exhaust fumes had been leaking under the bonnet, some of the smoke seems to have fogged the inside of the drivers side headlamp lens. When you open the bonnet the lens looks like its held on to the main light unit via clips. I can get the top clips off but the way its fixed I can't access the clips on the side of underneath if there are any.

Do I need to remove the bumper to get to the light unit?

How complicated is it to remove the bumper?

They are standard lights, not the xenon.

 

[design guru]

W220 lens removal - problem solved, job done.

Well after a while I found this article and it worked a charm. I managed to remove the headlight lens without removing the bumper.

remove w220 headlights | Three-Pointed Star Blog

It does warn you of potentially scratching the bumper but if you take care you can remove the headlight assembly safely. I did not even remove the wiring, I managed to pull it out enough to unclip the latched that hold the lens in place with a flat head screwdriver and clean the inside of the lens and place it back.

The 3 safety clips you can see from the top, there are 3 on the bottom edge and one located on the left closest to the wing, by unclipping these 7 latches the lens just slides out and you can clean the dirt or in my case the exhaust fumes that had tinted the inside of the lens.

The clips are very delicate so be careful not to push them to far or they will break!

Cleaned the lens and placed it all back and now both my headlights are clean and I don't have a brownish tint on my drivers side lens anymore.

Disclaimer: The link is very clear and worked for me very well, but with most DIY jobs you are taking a risk as professional mechanics recommend removing the bumper to avoid any potential damage so do this at your own risk by using the method I used or the method in the link but I managed to remove the lens, clean it and replace it within 30 minutes.