Hey Everyone, it seems like problem after problem with these cars, anyway I just reached the 70K milestone so that could be signs of aging, lol. Anyway its a minor nuisance, but I keep getting this false error with my right taillight, the sensor may be faulty or have some sort of fault in it causing it to say that my rear tail light is out and it has to be changed, so anyway what can I do to cancel the error so it doesn't show up on the screen, because there is clearly nothing wrong with it? Thanks!

I looked at some TSBs and this is one of them:

P-82_10-217 JAN 03 Lighting - Parking/Tail Lamp Bulbs Inoperative

If I bring the car to the stealership, lol and mention the above TSB could I get it fixed for free even though the car is out of warranty? Thanks again!

-Vlad

 

It may be that the bulb is about to go. Try swapping sides and see if the error goes away. I know it sounds dumb but it's free and should stop the error if there isn't a wiring issue. And of course if the other side now throws an error, it's time to hit up the parts store.

 

I believe TSB are done only under warr for free, otherwise you have to pay, It depends on your dealer and your relationship with them though.

 

The TSB seems to reduce the occurrences, but does not completely fix the issue, as I understand it. The problem seems to be that the resistance of the bulb's connection goes above what the computer thinks is a functional bulb. I've had the TSB done, and still have the "annual" bulb sacrifice.

Once I started changing all the taillight bulbs every summer, I stopped having problems. I also noticed that it did not seem to like Autozone bulbs. But again, usually if I go ask for the taillamp bulbs, my SA will just hand them to me (they also don't charge to change minor blown bulbs).

 

I had a somewhat relative problem to this. I always had 4 malfunctions for my lights in the back:
-Replacement L ON
-Replacement R ON
-Check L Brake
-Check R Brake

All I had to do was change the brake bulbs (the lower part of the brake that always stays on at night)

And I cleared all 4!

People say Mercs are crap, but man, these cars will care for you if you care for it!

 

Early W203s - 2001s and 2002s - were crap. End of story.

 

Yeah I'm gonna try changing those small ones at first I thought it was the actual housing where the lights go itself that needed to be changed. Anyway another thing with this issue is that the false warning happens occasionally, sometimes it doesn't happen at all so thats what gets me even more confused. If there was some sort of way that I can cancel that error message that would be great, because I know this is going to end up costing me much more than I bargained for if I take it to the stealer, lol.