javi0420

Hi, what kind of brand of HID conversion kit your recommend to C350 2008 W204 MB?

Uncfan1976

I was thinking about doing this as well. I was reading an article online about these conversion kits are not good for cars without hid headlamps. Plastic melting, wires shorting.. Any truth to any of this?

Don't mean to hijack your thread but my questions are topical

Zakaria103

I have had aftermarket HIDs installed on my car for over a year now. They work just find.. no plastic melting or any issues.

mkpoto

installed a set on my friend c300 (urbancustoms) and they have been running fine with no issues, ran it with a resistor bought by ddmtuning and no issues

AZN Optics

You shouldn't have any issues with melting, especially if you go with a 35W kit. 55W kit shouldn't be an issue as well for headlights, but can present a problem in tight enclosed space like your fogs.

Top of the line units are honestly MTEC, but those cost a grip. We're a direct distributor of Morimoto units which are also fairly high end and well engineered units at a reasonable price ($150).

Willis1550

Azn, Whats going on with Morimoto's ballasts? I bought a kit a few weeks ago and have had nothing but problems with it; flickering and one light won't ignite. They're now telling me that they have a new set of ballasts coming early December with a bigger ignite and newer IC Chip and they'll be shipping me two new ballasts. Have you heard anything.

rshah31

I have also been having nothing but problems with my Morimoto kit.

One side intermittently will not ignite. On cold starts, I have to make sure the lights are set to "off", not auto, just for the car to start.

I have inexpensive (less than $50) VVME kits on my Lexus and Sonata, both equipped with retrofitted projectors, and they have been running for 5+ years flawlessly. I only opted for the pricier Morimoto kit because I thought it would work well with the W204's more intricate electronics but I was completely wrong. It's very frustrating. I'm ready to pull them out and return to halogens. Is there any hope for a fix?

AZN Optics

Who did you buy it from? I have not heard anything about a redesign on the Morimoto ballasts. They just recently had a tech refresh few months ago with new software, but I'll hit up Morimoto to see if there's anything new.

Willis1550

After trouble shooting with them, I got an email saying they're shipping me out 2 redesigned ballasts. They mentioned a lot of people were having the issues.

Straight from TRS.com

rshah31

It's great to hear that they are sending you new ballasts. Keep us posted on how they work!

Uncfan1976

Any issues of oncoming traffic flashing because the lights are too bright?

AZN Optics

Ok, just to update, I heard back from Morimoto. Basically there was an issue with some of the later model ballasts and igniter problems with cold weather. They've fixed this problem now by updating the circuitry and now have massive Siemens igniters in place of the current ones. If you have any issues with your Morimoto kit doing this, please contact your Morimoto rep where you purchased your kit from.

BenzManNy

Even when I am not an active customer at this points, is foot to see that AZN stands by what they sell.

||||||||||

It's been a while since this was posted, but thought I would chime in since no one really answered his question.

HID kits are typically bad to put in headlight housings made for halogen bulbs, because typically speaking halogen housings use a reflector, not a projector to disperse the light beam. HID's are far brighter than halogen bulbs, so when you put an HID bulb in a reflector housing, the light pattern disperses everywhere and "splashes" all over the place, blinding other drivers with a horrific glare. From my understanding, HID's run cooler than halogen bulbs, so I don't see where the "melting plastic and wires shorting" issues came from, but thats a moot point.

Our headlights have a halogen projector for the low beam, which is the same basic design as a xenon projector. It's basically a reflective concave housing which the bulb sits inside, a glass lens which projects the light forward, and a cutoff shield which prevents the light from shining above a certain point. The cutoff shield is the biggest and most important difference in reflector housings and projector housings. Without the cutoff shield, the projector would emit a hellaciously blinding light all over the road, blinding oncoming traffic. The cutoff shield helps cut down on glare. This is why, though not technically proper, in my opinion it's okay to do an HID conversion on our headlights. Still, the best way to do an HID setup on any halogen headlight is to retrofit some OEM bi-xenon projectors into the stock headlight, but that is a seriously involved process and not one I would be willing to tackle.

I've actually thought about doing an HID setup on my C350, and honestly, I probably will, but I want to find a decent kit that isn't going to have issues igniting or flickering. . The only thing that makes me kind of iffy about it, is that I feel like having an aftermarket HID kit from China on a Mercedes Benz is a little on the "ghetto" side

Willis1550

Thanks for the update. I think TRS said my replacements should ship on 12/12. Hopefully these massive ballasts will still be easy to mount/hide.