last week i bought a 2007 Mercedes Benz c230 sport. since them ive been going crazy looking at pictures and forums and just trying to learn as much as i can about my new car. One question i do have is, is there a buy/sale forum on here and also if i switch my hi/low and fog lights to led with i get an error message?



if anyone has any new advise or tips for me please let me know. thankyou in advance.

 

Hello, congrats on your purchase! Do you have a v6 engine? (i dont know about that one) How many miles does it have? full service history? how many previous owners? Are you a professional auto mechanic who owns expensive diagnostic equipment for auto electric issues? do you know your SAM from your CAN? can you afford to pay a garage to do this stuff for you if you can't yourself?

LED bulbs have mixed reviews. Theres threads on here discussing them, and the 'official' bi-xenon upgrade
What are your plans for this car? Daily driver? is it your 2nd vehicle or does your life depend on this car working 24/7?

 

welcome to the forum and congrats.
Diminishing returns with leds. There is no guarrantee that you will get better lighting and you may end up blinding people. Headlamp lenses are designed for the specific location of the light source: The filament. LEDs do not reproduce this location and therefore the focus can never be correct. I just use some of the better aftermarket halogens. Never a problem.

 

i have the v6 engine. the mileage is 76k and it has the full service history and i got the car faxs. im the 3rd owner of the car. i am no where near a professional mechanic. i can just do basic stuff and follow instructions. i do not know what sam and can is.

i want to buy these headlights just because they are black and i have a black car. https://www.ebay.com/itm/Fits-01-07-...53.m1438.l2649

as for the led bulbs. i wanted to get this set bc of the rgb lights. https://www.ebay.com/itm/AUXBEAM-H7-...53.m1438.l2649

this car is now my daily driver. im coming from a v6 jaguar s type.

also what are the bi-xenon upgrade?

 

Welcome to the forum.

Cheap LEDs won't work on this car. LEDs are too efficient and don't draw enough juice, so the car (through the Canbus system) will think the bulb is out and will flicker the bulb. To get around this, one has to add a "Canbus error canceller" (a glorified high wattage resistor, added in parallel to the bulb) such that the circuit draws enough juice. Personally I don't think this is worth the trouble. Every exterior light other than the rear "sidemarker" lights have Canbus. None of the interior cabin lights do, so those can be switched to LEDs very easily. The trunk one has this problem though so I had to add a resistor in parallel to eliminate the problem.

Yes there's a buy/sell forum. Won't be model specific but a good resource to find MB parts or entire vehicles.

 

I replaced my headlights with Depo quad projectors since the wiring inside OEM halogen fixtures had completely disintegrated and they were shorting out - of course they are for the W209 CLK since I have a C55, but in summary: They are a direct plug and play and look nice on the car. They appear to be of good quality and appear nearly OEM, but the internal projectors are just ok. They have a European cutoff pattern instead of DOT (more severe ramp and not a straight line). The driver's side has a prismatic effect right at the center and the passenger side has a bad hotspot. The high beams are also not well aligned with the low beams and are not separately adjustable.

It sounds like you may not be that mechanical, so fair warning - you will have to pull your front bumper cover off (or at least remove all the bolts so it's loose enough to pull down the sides where it attaches to the fenders) to change your headlight fixtures. Also, be sure everything lines up as there is a lot of adjustment. I had to do mine twice since I did it in the driveway by flashlight the first time. The driver side was a 1/4" behind the fender line and the passenger side was 1/4" forward. The driver's side also had a big gap to the fender and hood at the top and the passenger side didn't line up right with the bumper cover on the bottom. I doubt most people would have noticed, but it bugged the heck out of me. There are metal inserts where the fasteners go through. These can be screwed up and down until everything aligns correctly with the bodywork. The bolt holes on the car itself are also slotted. Take your time and watch for this if you do it yourself. None of it is that difficult, but it is time consuming. If you mess this up, you will also have to realign your headlights. Again. The hardest part of the whole operation is the clips that hold the bumper to the fenders at the sides.

The H7 LED bulbs I chose however work great with no errors or flicker. I would not recommend these bulbs for high beams, as they would barely fit the housing in that position and wouldn't allow for the fan to effectively cool.

Edit: The focal length on the bulbs can actually be adjusted by sliding the bulb in or out by roughly 1/4". They are held into their mounts by a couple of o rings. After a little fiddling, I was able to eliminate the hot spot on the passenger side completely by sliding the bulb outward. I had them rammed all the way in. The driver's side is SLIGHTLY better than it was, but still has a slight prismatic effect at the center focal point (bottom of the cutoff ramp). The "mask" (or whatever the proper term for it is) inside the projector is probably bent either too close or too far away from the lens at that point. It's not the bulb.

 

Hello I also just bought an 07 c230 sport in black!! It has 104,000 miles on it and doesn’t seem like anything is faulty... the suspension whistles here and there but I don’t mind because of how comfortable the ride is. Looking forward to seeing your c230!

 

i need to go get my car detailed and ill post pics. its coming along really good so far though