NEA-4311

Hi, my dad owns a w211 E 320 4matic and he recently bumped into someone :P and replaced his xenon headlights. That left him with 2 pair of xenons and all im asking is if i can take the lamps and the igniters or the generators, i dont know how to call them exactly, and install them on my w202? Is this possible, or is the actual headlights glass (plastic) chamber that these lamps need to light? Thanks for reading.

StapleGun

Those are ballasts, if I remember correctly, and they should work...but as you have rightly posted. Someone will confirm either way, suggestion - pull the MB part number and post. I'll check the P/N on mine.

I'm not sure what your second question is...are you asking if the HID lamp itself will seat in the former H4 lamp receptacle? That I do not know.

NEA-4311

No thats not what im asking in the second question. Im wearing H7's but even so, i know that xenon bulbs need a special gas chamber because the temperatures are way grater than ordinary halogen bulbs. The aftermarket kits use the bulb itself as a chamber , it looks like an ordinary one but its slightly different. Is that the case in the original mercedes xenon lights? If its not and it needs the whole headlight, then they wont fit.

OzC36

Hi,

The whole issue of aftermarket xenon installation turns out to be a very complex subject. The first issue relates to the fact that the headlight reflector is designed to focus and provide cutoff and headlight patterns to suit the standard filament bulbs. As I understand it the filament bulbs have a very small area highly intense light source emanating from the filament. OTOH, the xenon bulbs have a relatively large area of highly intense light emanating from the large excited gas area (like a flourescent tube). This means that your standard reflectors if fitted with a xenon bulb would "spray" light rays all over the place and are therefore unsuitable for road use.

I believe there are also other issues such as legal requirements for xenon lights to have in-built automatic self leveling system (not your old standard Benz manual headlight adjustment for different loadings).

The first xenon projector lights for W202 cars are just starting to appear on EBay but the projectors are for the fogs only.

There is a lot of information on the other Mercedes forums including Club202. Try a search under "xenon" on these sites for more threads than you can poke a stick at!

What you can easily do is replace your bulbs with one of the new Bosch, Philips etc range of Halogen Plus 30 or Plus 50 which as the name suggests gives more light. And there are also bulbs with a higher colour temperature (around 4200 deg C) which look very white/blue like a xenon. Any of these bulbs are cheap, a simple changeover, fully legal and available at your closest auto store.

The Automotive Lighting website (see link below) has just about everything you ever wanted to know about this subject! I found the FAQ section to be very informative:

http://faqlight.carpassion.info/index.html

NEA-4311

You are a great help! Thanks for answering and i really appreciate your effort. It seems that its a complicated matter even though there are many aftermarket xenon kits for regular headlights and they appear to handle the light pretty good. I believe they are road-legal as well. I'll look into it. Cheers!