XenonBenz

I finally finished this project on Friday. Installed the following parts, repainted the hood, and got the exterior buffed and polished. The before and after is pretty amazing. I feel like I have a new car... again.

List of Mods and comments.

1. Depo projectors. $420 shipped from K1Motorsports. They look much better than I expected. Too bad the projector doesn't perform near as good as OEM Bi-Xenon. I have an HID kit, and the road is illuminated well because of the sheer volume of light, not from good optics. They don't shine very wide like OEM Bi-Xenon, but shine front heavy like stock halogen headlights. I think that these Depo's would be horrible with halogen bulbs. The cutoff line is very sharp through the projector at least, which works great with an HID kit. There are some severe hotspots.

2. Lumenex HID kit. $180 shipped on eBay from Hong Kong. 8000K color is nice. "Smart Ballast" with no headlight error msg. I've had 3 random headlight errors over 3 months.

3. W211 Style aftermarket mirror LED. $ 63 shipped on eBay from Hong Kong. I think these match the Depo's perfectly. They fit tight during install, but the fit looks OEM. They are really bright. Some light blinks inside the mirror housing, esp. noticable at night.

4. OEM 05 Fog light lenses. $22 each at dealer. Clear looks much beter than frosted, but should have just bought new OEM 05 fog lights. There is bare white plastic showing from the inside of the foglight.

5. 05 Sport Grille. $140 at dealer. The 3 slat grille looks much better than the 4 slat.

6. Chrome Exhaust Tip. $125 shipped on eBay from Hong Kong. Nice accent to the rear. No more pea shooters in the back.

Before


After


After 2


Close up


Depo projector's with Silverstar Turn Signals


Mirror LED Before


Mirror LED After


Exhaust Before


Exhaust After


Fog Light


Lights Against Wall- I have a theory why the hotspots are so severe with an HID kit. The H7 bulbs install backwards in the Depo's compared to OEM headlights. I am going to try to flip the bulbs the other way (probably will have to cut off the tab at the base of the H7 bulb to do this). Will post results.


Lights in Parking Lot


Lights in Parking Lot 2



Next:

1. 05 C230 Springs
2. Ceramic Brake Pads and x-drilled rotors
3. LED S-Class Style Taillights
4. 05 OEM Sport Foglights
5. Kenwood 7.25" Navigation/DVD/TV

Possibly thinking about these 19" wheels... what do you guys think?

LuxuryC240

Hey that looks very clean nice job....any chance you can get a side shot of the exhaust tips?

j_belll

great job. you're starting off right. those rims are nice too, but i wouldn't get chrome. maybe brushed.

AndySays

Very good work, I'm impressed

XenonBenz

Yeah, hopefully they come in plain silver. I won't buy chrome rims.

Here's the only side pic I have. It doesn't look perfect from the side, but it doesn't look near as bad as I thought it would.

Kar don

how much u want for your old grille?

M230K

great transformation looks very nicee

LuxuryC240

Wow thanks for the quickness, lol, yeah...man I wish these looked better from the side because they look so nice from the rear...I think I will still pick one up though in the near future..

MJ50

looking good!
how about set of 19" v715 rims?

SlvrC230SS

Looks good

crazyfox

nice! looking hot!

crazyfox

dang right! i am sooooooo going to get that grille!

FrankW

looks good. I would leave the chrome exhaust tips off tho.

sim_benz

really a good looking facelift.

one caveat...if you do those wheels, i would recommend a bigger brake.

I dont know from what you said, but it seemed like you were gunno just drill the stock rotors and put on new pads. I would highly recomment doing an AMG brake, or brembo, or even the bigger MB ones from the new sport models.

I have had the experience of putting brake-exposing wheels on my car w/ stock brakes in the front and it looked like crap.

Big brakes are one of those touches on a modded car that make it look pretty hardcore...i mean, how do you tell a true high-perf (or AMG) from a fake? the brakes are usually an indicator

Big drilled rotors and a big painted caliper (not a FAN of red...but it works on a lot of cars) just make the car look vicious, and those are some of the more brake-exposing wheels ive seen, so itll matter because you'll have these sweet deepdish racing-rims and itty-bitty brakes.

It lookes friggin sweet tho! thats just something i learned the hard way having my car look like **** for a while in that respect, thought i'd warn you.

yeuchau

not bad, but you wanna want to consider amg kits if you want exterior facelift as well

powa

very nice, what body kit you gonna put on next?

rlee02135

lookin good!

Ryanr317

Look into another front bumper. That's kind of expensive for those tips i think. Other than that it's looking pretty good.

Diamond White W212

The lights and grill alone make a huge difference

coin

Depo light is really deceiving in a good way !!

Diamond White W212

I just noticed your silver painted calipers. Niiiiceee. I'm painting mine silver this weekend (with black Mercedes-Benz text). Thats the kind of subtle mod I really get into. Even most Benz owners wouldn't notice the difference from stock but someone like you or I would walk by and say 'Nice painted calipers'

**sorry for the slight thread hijack**

sim_benz

those are actually the genuine AMG brakes in front (so they say AMG in black on em instead of just mercedes benz) and i got the brembo drilled rotors in the back

sim_benz

btw, xenonbenz, i would really loose the tips if i were you, but its all your style choice.

its a li'l esspensive, but might I suggest a new rear bumper with a space for the tips so they can come straight out? (I am a huge fan of the AMG rear bumper...i think its the best one out there for the design of the car). It will deffinately enhance the look of your tips! (and car as a whole )

XenonBenz

While the chrome exhaust tips are not my ideal choice... my 04.0 has no tips at all. The chrome tips look a lot better than the 2 little dinky pipes, as you can see from the picture.



I'm probably not going to do much more to the exterior of this car. I don't plan on keeping this car all that long. I'm going to trade up to a W204 in a year if I like it. I hope that I like the car better in person than pictures I've seen. If I don't like the way it looks, I will probably trade my 04 for an 06 C55 and go mod crazy,

All I have left is to install 05 C230 Springs that I bought already, x-drilled rotors and ceramic pads (only because I need a brake job soon anyways. the dust is REALLY killing me, and my brakes squeal bad. original rotors still on the car with 62K miles),and Dbl DIN navi, which I can take with me or sell. If I move to Florida at the end of the year, than I will buy some 19's.

I know there are cheaper tips on eBay, but the finish looks horrible in the pictures of the cheaper ones. The metal has swirlmarks and doesn't have any luster. I am very satisfied with the tip that I bought. The quality is great, and the finish looks as good as an OEM exhaust tip.

$125


$80

WhatTheHulk

an interesting thread i stumbled upon...The Depo Tweak