willy_manilly

Hi there,

I have a 2004 CLK with standard halogen headlights and one of my low beam globes has finally blown. Instead of just replacing the bulb with another standard halogen I was thinking I might try one of the new H7 LED globes (with the inbuilt resistor of course).

Has anybody had any experience with these before in their CLK?

Any help or options would be great. I've found the below ones, however i'm unsure if they'll fit due to the size of them. I was thinking going the HID route however I don't really want to blind every oncoming vehicle so I might give that a miss.

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/181995915...%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/181915389...%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/161874034...%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/281845868...%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

AZN Optics

LEDs are not ideal for primary forward projecting lights in housing not designed specifically to capture LED surface mounted light spread. Even though the LED itself has fairly high lumens, what you end up with is reduced throw distance, light scatter, and dark spots. LEDs are ideal for short throw distance (interior lighting, rear plates, etc) or indication lighting (signals, parking lights, etc). They are ok for some forward projecting lights like fogs as you don't rely on those for primary illumination. LEDs might be ok for high beams as well if you live in the city and only use your high beams to flash people as opposed to illuminate the road.

You're right that HIDs are not the best solution though with halogen reflectors, but HIDs are the best solution for brighter whiter usable lighting. Options would be headlight housing replacement with units that have integrated projectors (DEPO, SPYDER, etc). Or retrofit projectors into your stock housing. Or what you can do if you don't want to purchase another set of stock halogen bulbs is take out the ones from your high beams and place them in your low beams, then do either an LED or HID conversion in your high beams. LEDs if you usually just flash people, or HIDs if you want something brighter as with high beams you don't turn on with people in front of you.

willy_manilly

Hi there,

Thanks for your response. I might just go for some standard halogens for the low beam and maybe some LED's for the fogs lights and parking lights.

Do you have any suggestions for some that won't cause errors and fit nicely?

Regards

AZN Optics

I'm guessing by some of your wording, you're not based out of the US right? Your specs may vary from what we have, but US spec 209s use 9006 for fogs and 194 wedge for parking lights. We carry HIDs for 9006 unfortunately, no LEDs currently in stock, but we do have plug and play canbus LEDs for your parking lights if interested. If you do decide to go with HID fogs, our top shelf Morimoto 9006 HID conversion kit are a great choice.