Good reccomendation for aftermarket lights?

[13bArtillery107]

I have factory xenons, and want to put in aftermarket lights, and possibly taillights. I don't want to lose my automatic leveling feature, nor do i want crappy light displacement due to a shotty product. Any reccomendations?

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[ohlord]

BULBS
xenons need to be replaced in pairs.
polish the lenses diy on www.benzworld.org w210 forum.
See if www.danielsternlighting.com has brighter bulb for the tail lights.
Most rear led kits for rear suck.
Most aftermarket headlights suck and you lose self leveling.
Even modified they still suck

[13bArtillery107]

My bulbs are very bright and work perfect, It's just the lenses leave alot to be desired. I'll probably end up just doing the lenses. I have my own small garage and have access to any goodies I might need.

[Fabio D]

I modify the depo projectors with W211 bi-xenon's and install too the electrical motor for the auto adjust leveling. all works perfect and i buy some 5000k phillips color match d2s bulbs, light pattern is awesome and the light color is simply bright

You can do that

Fabio Daniel

[13bArtillery107]

Can you give me some more information on the process you went through?

[Fabio D]

Here is the link with the same proces i do. only difference in my headlights is that i use the OEM electrical level adjusters with the oem wiring harness inside the headlights (i replace the depo harness by the OEM mercedes from my oem xenon headligts) i use the oem xenon ballaster etc with d2s colormatch bulbs. you can buy 2 w211 bi-xenon projectors and is no real hard to modify the depo ones

Hope this help

Depo headlight HID projector retro

Fabio Daniel

[CA_Tallguy]

The depo housings are not very good. After 3 years, mine don't look very good anymore. You can tell they are cheap quality just holding the darn things. I would much prefer to have factory xenons, and when I buy an E55 I will not buy one from anyone who has removed them.

For cars with factory halogen, the xenon/depo upgrade is worthwhile. But I think it is foolish to remove factory xenons for this type of retrofit (have the lenses refinished or DIY if they are clouded). If better quality housings were available, I might feel differently.

[Fabio D]

Originally Posted by CA_Tallguy

The depo housings are not very good. After 3 years, mine don't look very good anymore. You can tell they are cheap quality just holding the darn things. I would much prefer to have factory xenons, and when I buy an E55 I will not buy one from anyone who has removed them.

For cars with factory halogen, the xenon/depo upgrade is worthwhile. But I think it is foolish to remove factory xenons for this type of retrofit (have the lenses refinished or DIY if they are clouded). If better quality housings were available, I might feel differently.

Mines are perfect with one and a half year :S maybe your car are sited in direct sun radiation. but change the stock xenon's for W211 projector bi-xenon wort the efort and the money to me. The light pattern are PERFECT and much good than the stock. (Depo projectors with halogen or aftermarket HID's runs like crap) but customized with w211 bi-xenon and all oem ballasters/bulbs/electric level adjusters is the best you can do in this cars if you run in the night

I mean: the light pattern is "perfect" with that retrofit, if i need to change the depo housings in 3 years, i will buy a new depo set and retroffited them again in the future.

Also, you can conserve the OEM xenon headlights, when you think in sell your e55 you can install the oem set up again (i have mines)

Fabio Daniel

[CA_Tallguy]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the light output from the factory xenons should be more than ample, correct? That leads me to believe that most people are making this change for the look of the depo housing. And to me, the quality of that housing is not good enough to muck with the factory (xenons). Maybe I'm being overly critical because I know how cheap the housings are from installing mine. But I feel like these housings are like slapping on some crappy junk like you might find in the "accessories" aisle of your local auto parts store to a well engineered german car. Again, I'd probably be singing a far different tune if the housings were better quality. Even out of the box they suck.

But as I said before, they suck less than the factory halogens. So it is worthwhile, in my opinion, if you have those.

[raymond g-]

generally speaking, the D2S bulb of facelifted models are approx 3200 lm (projectors)
compared to 2800 lm of the D2R bulb (reflector).

[Fabio D]

Here is some depos with the same projectors i have

Some fact about HID/Xenon upgrade

Clearly noticiable the difference with the oem xenon headlights. not to mention the Hi beam pattern is extremely exelent than the oem's

Fabio Daniel