ahadhayat

Hello,
I have a 09 C 300 sports Merc. I was wondering if people know if i am covered for my headlight bulb change. At night, for some odd reason, my head light (not high beam) is so bright that people ahead of me or coming the opposite way flash their light towards me. I finally checked and the light is really bright. I got it checked again at an incpection shop and the beam is not high. It is with in the legal height.
I really want to get this fixed but i heard the Merc warranty isnt as good as BMW. I have only taken my car to get a Service A. How much would i have to pay for them to change the lights? I almost got into an accident as the car ahead of me just stopped in the middle of the highway and when i came next to him said that the car light was soo bright he couldnt see anything.
Any help would be greatly appreciated

09 Merc C300 Sports - 20K miles

RLE

Are these Bi-Xenon lights or conventional? And what country is this?

If these are Bi-Xenon, it's likely that the shutter which shields the bulb for low beam in that lamp assembly has failed. That would be a warranty fix, obviously.

ahadhayat

I am not sure if it is. How would i know? I live in USA. I googled it though and i think it is.

JimPap

Do you know if you have the P2 package? Bixenons come in the P2 package. If you're not sure, check to see if you've got the back seats that fold down. That option is only available on P2s.

Did you buy your C300 new? If not and you don't have the P2 package its possible that someone put in an aftermarket xenon (or other light) and its not aimed properly. You'd think the dealership would find that but anything's possible.

ahadhayat

Yes, it is a P2 package. I bought it this year from a company auction (the company were auctioning their cars). I didnt have a problem in the first few months but recently i realised i might not be getting flashed because of a potential cop ahead.
Whats the Warranty clause regarding this? I dont want to go to the dealership and get charged 400 for bulbs.

RLE

You said one light was "too bright" or some such, not that one was out. Therefore, it's not the bulb.

Assuming the warranty was transferred to you (normal procedure), you should go to the dealer. I still say it's the shutter that is not dropping down to provide low beam. You can also prove this by shining the headlights on a wall and observing the beam change or lack of it on in that side.

JimPap

Here's a possibility.

The natural aim pattern of the bixenons (which you would have in the p2 package) is such where the driver's light is slightly down to avoid blinding oncoming drivers. Some people feel that its aimed too far down and will raise it to be even with the passanger side.

When you put your brights on, two things happen. The shutter in the xenons open fully and the halogen lamps come on.

So they're several possibiliities. The xenons were aimed too high, the shutter is stuck open, the halogens are set too high.

It would help if you could aim your lights at a solid wall and take some pictures with normal and brights.

ahadhayat

Hello,
So i came back from the dealership today. They looked at it and said that it was fine. They said that the lights are just bright with such lights and there was no problem. He did see that the tire pressure was a bit low and filled it up but the lights according to him are 'fine'.
I feel like i am back to square one. I actually now dont enjoy driving at night because i feel bad for the driver infront and hate it when the driver slows down, comes behind me and puts his high beem on.
Does anyone else with a p2 package face this?

MBnewby

If there is another MB dealership near you or within reasonable driving distance I would go get a second opinion. I've never heard of this issue with the bi-xenons so I think there is probably a problem that should be covered by warranty.

C300Sport

I have had a few issues with my dealer wanting to claim "everything checks out fine" when there is an obvious problem. I pretty well had to make an *** of myself to finally get confirmation of a couple problems and they will now have the parts on hand to repair my problems when I schedule my service. You may just have to get aggressive to make them listen.

ahadhayat

So i thought. Maybe the dealer looked at it, so he might have tweeked it and it might have become ok. So yesterday, nothing happened. So i thought to myself, okay, its all good. Today when i was coming back from work. The car ahead of me stopped at the red light and asked me to come fwd next to him. when i did, he started yelling and told me how he was blinded by the light. I told him it isnt my high beem but he didnt believe me. So when he went ahead of me, i let him see how bad my high beam would feel :P....
But now that this episode has finished, i feel bad for people driving next, ahead and opposite me. So tomorrow i am going to go to another dealer and ask them to look at it and pref change the bulb (if he says nothing is wrong).
Anyone know what i should ask them to look at?

ahadhayat

Does anyone know how to adjust the beam? I couldnt go today, so for now, atleast i want to lower the beam. I couldnt find anything in the manual.