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If I have to count, the cost is actually a lot less. But that wasn't why I went this route. I hastily bought the car without knowing much about the options and now, instead of *****ing and moaning of shouldhaves couldhaves, I'm just making up for my shortcomings.
That makes sense. Or you could sell it and buy the car you actually want!
I know my car with all the options invoked the Luxury Car Tax because of the price but I had to wear it.
You're not taxed on the price of the new car. You're taxed on the spread between the price of the new car and the trade. You've already paid sales tax on the trade when you bought it.
So if the new car was $40k and they gave you $30k for the trade, you're taxed on $10k. At a 6% state sales tax that's $600 (or whatever your state's tax rate is).
Ah, I see. I've never traded in before, so I didn't know. I thought it'd be like selling the car to the dealer, then buying a new one. But if the sale tax is not a problem, the difference in trading would still kill me. Even if it doesn't, my wife definitely will
So I attempted to replace the bulbs with Cree led chips. After I secured it to the heat sink and then to the headlight housing and plugged it in the car, it went up in smoke, literally, and then died.
I went online trying to buy new bulbs. And this was when I had a Eureka moment. Before all this, I tried to use the OEM led bulbs but was never successful. But that's because I hooked it up to 12V. What if I hook it up to the led driver, which can go up to 34V. What if the reason the bulbs never lighted up was because all along I under powered it with 12V?
So I connected the oem bulbs to the driver, and bam, it lighted up like the sun Holly smoke, for a year and a half, I struggled and experimented with all kinds of chinese led while the solution was so simple and right in front of me
Going thru another surgery. The bulbs kept burning out and vapor kept building up. While at it, I'm gonna paint the orange reflector silver too.
Although it doesn't look it, knowing what I've done to the car, I'm beginnings to see my car like a Frankenstein W205 :-)
sweet, I wanted to wrap the amber - looking forward to the results
sweet, I wanted to wrap the amber - looking forward to the results
Herẻ is what it looks like now. Personally, I would not cut open this beautiful headlight just to cover the amber. It's not worth it as you're running the risk of ruining it or at the very least not sealing it properly. Oh, and you can't bake it open. It doesn't work with every headlight. I had to use a jig saw to cut it open.
Herẻ is what it looks like now. Personally, I would not cut open this beautiful headlight just to cover the amber. It's not worth it as you're running the risk of ruining it or at the very least not sealing it properly. Oh, and you can't bake it open. It doesn't work with every headlight. I had to use a jig saw to cut it open.
I've done it multiple times using a heat gun - it looks like heating the sealant and gently pulling them apart will work fine.
I've done it multiple times using a heat gun - it looks like heating the sealant and gently pulling them apart will work fine.
Will definitely be doing it.
My S4 with brushed gunmetal vinyl on the amber
Good luck. I tried baking at both 220F and later increased to 270F. The sealant did not seem to melt one bit. I googled and they said some used perma seal, which sounds like a one time sealant to me. Plus, using a heat gun would risk melting out the housing if you point at it too long. But hey, whatever works for you.
I made a mistake of buying a c300 without led headlights. It has halogen lights, which look like crap. MB should not make these lights, IMO. It degrages the look of the car. I couldn't stand the look of it. Every time I go to the car, it reminds me of the mistake. And I'm not the kind who can live with mistakes. So I called 2 dealers, to inquire about ordering those headlights and installing them. They both refused, saying those are factory install options and can't be retrofitted. Took it to a shop; the guy didn't know jack, but still quoted me thousands of dollars for rewiring and I have to buy all the parts, probably just to make me go away and save face. I wasn't ready to have the car for the next 10 years with that look. Thanks to eBay, some have these lights for sale. All along, I knew it was a gamble, and couple hundreds bucks might go to waste if I don't succeed. I learned that these lights need ECU modules to work and God know what else. The parts are not available anywhere, and even if I can find them, the wiring from the car is different.
When there is a will, there's a way, right? I figured if I can't rewire the car, I could rewire the headlights. So I removed all the led bulbs and replaced them with SMD led chips from ebay. Then I wired the bulbs to the connector's pins the same way my halogen lights are. After a lot of testing, back & forth, 2 weeks and a lot of man hours later, my baby got a new set of eyes It was truly a do-it-yourself as there was no schema, drawing, or guides to consult. I had to rely on my limited intelligence to figure things out it may not mean much to most of you who already have these lights, but for me, it was really satisfying.
Next project: butt transplant (those tail lights got to go)
Originally Posted by Vihzel
Wow nicely done. Yeah I don't understand why MB even allows halogen headlights to be an option for a luxury car. You can get cheap cars nowadays with HIDs at least.
Originally Posted by vic viper
Interesting, do you have any pictures of the DRL driver setup? I am looking for a way to get a trigger signal to my illuminated star.
Originally Posted by vic viper
Lit door handles only with Keyless Go
Originally Posted by huyuci
So I attempted to replace the bulbs with Cree led chips. After I secured it to the heat sink and then to the headlight housing and plugged it in the car, it went up in smoke, literally, and then died.
I went online trying to buy new bulbs. And this was when I had a Eureka moment. Before all this, I tried to use the OEM led bulbs but was never successful. But that's because I hooked it up to 12V. What if I hook it up to the led driver, which can go up to 34V. What if the reason the bulbs never lighted up was because all along I under powered it with 12V?
So I connected the oem bulbs to the driver, and bam, it lighted up like the sun Holly smoke, for a year and a half, I struggled and experimented with all kinds of chinese led while the solution was so simple and right in front of me
Man thanks for your determination. So we can buy the oem LEDs and have to change the wiring and hook it up to the led driver. Question does the eyebrow light up in the daytime?
Man thanks for your determination. So we can buy the oem LEDs and have to change the wiring and hook it up to the led driver. Question does the eyebrow light up in the daytime?
Wow. This thread was like 2 years ago and people still managed to find it. I don't know who's more determined than who :-)
To answer your question, yeah that's what i did. The eyebrows module somehow did not light up with my driver. Maybe my driver voltage was too high for it, i don't know. So i substituted with 12v led
Thanks for the Reply. Do the drl's work in the daytime? and besides purchasing the oem leds on ebay what other items specifically need to be bought?
The DRL works if you wire it correctly. If you go thru the thread, you'd see that the pins in the plug have to be arranged as the LED plug has a different pin configuration from the halogen plug. And you'll need 12v LED and also driver (also called voltage step up module).
Are you sure you want to do this? It's not brain surgery hard, but it's not a walk in the park either. The hardest part is figuring out which pin goes to which and which wire is for which light and so on.
I see. actually my plan was to go to a bodyshop and show them this thread. LoL.
The good news is you can buy retrofit tail lights on ebay. And hopefully a retrofit oem head light will be made as well. And while it will be expensive I believe many will buy it if sold. Until then im sure your post will be a point of reference for those who refuse to go gentle into that dim light...
I see. actually my plan was to go to a bodyshop and show them this thread. LoL.
The good news is you can buy retrofit tail lights on ebay. And hopefully a retrofit oem head light will be made as well. And while it will be expensive I believe many will buy it if sold. Until then im sure your post will be a point of reference for those who refuse to go gentle into that dim light...
man, you keep spreading false info. First, you said there's aftermarket headlights on eBay in another thread. I called you out. Now you're saying there's retrofit tail lights.
Its true plug ang play tail light $890 + shipping direct from Germany.
As for the headlamps... It was more of a question.I was asking if anybody has changed the headlamps with either after market or retrofit(modified oem) ones. I dont know if the ones by Magneti marelli are oem or aftermarket they appear to not have the amber side and are made by automotive lighting in the chech republic. So assumed tehy were aftermarket and not oem. \
I appreciate your input and my only hope is that an easier plug and play solution is made available for the headlamps as well. There simply no reason for a Mercedes $45,000 car to not have xenon as standard in 2017. And im sure many people feel the same.
Its true plug ang play tail light $890 + shipping direct from Germany.
As for the headlamps... It was more of a question.I was asking if anybody has changed the headlamps with either after market or retrofit(modified oem) ones. I dont know if the ones by Magneti marelli are oem or aftermarket they appear to not have the amber side and are made by automotive lighting in the chech republic. So assumed tehy were aftermarket and not oem. \
I appreciate your input and my only hope is that an easier plug and play solution is made available for the headlamps as well. There simply no reason for a Mercedes $45,000 car to not have xenon as standard in 2017. And im sure many people feel the same.
my apology. You should have included the links in your post. I searched and didn't find anything so i thought it was b.s. the headlights in your link appear to be oem, so they probably won't work. The tail lights seem to be retrofit but the price is a little stiff compared to oem.
Some updates: it turned out that what I did with the Ebay LED chips was unnecessary and not long lasting. The chip will burn out after a while. And they're not bright anyway. Unnecessary because the OEM LED bulbs can be lighted up with a correct voltage, driven by a step up/step down module. I now got OEM high beam, low beam, and DRL to light up properly. The only catch is the DRL cannot be wired to the DRL pin of my halogen light plug. The power source is too weak for the led DRL; the DRL would flash a few times and then the car would cut its power off. So, I had to wire the DRL like the way people wire the lighted star (wire into the fuse box next to the engine).
Herẻ is what it looks like now. Personally, I would not cut open this beautiful headlight just to cover the amber. It's not worth it as you're running the risk of ruining it or at the very least not sealing it properly. Oh, and you can't bake it open. It doesn't work with every headlight. I had to use a jig saw to cut it open.
Did I miss something or was your original car black?
To answer your PM about the rewiring of the headlight assembly:
The concept is simple: we need to make sure that each pin in the light assembly's plug correspond to the appropriate light in the car's plug. If it's not, then we trace the wire leading to that pin and reroute it to the correct light.
The way I did to find out which pin is for which light is to turn on each light individually, then use a 12v test light and poke at each pin in the car's plug to see which one lights up.
To make it easier to trace and reroute the wiring inside the assembly, push the assembly's plug inward. That will release it from its position.
For the low beam and DRL, there are about 5 wires leading to the LED bulb connector. We only care about positive (+) and negative (-) wires. If I remember correctly, they're the 2 right most wires. Test those 2 to make sure they are.
Some rules of thumb that I have:
- use a spare car battery to test. do not test on the car until it's ready.
- only modify wiring on the light assembly. Don't ever cut wire or modify anything on the car. Doing that would be irreversible and fast track to voiding warranty.
- this is messing with electrical, so be extremely careful.
Finally, this mod is a bit messy and is not for the faint of heart. Don't do it if you're not comfortable with it. It took me 2 years of trial and errors to finally got it stabilized.
What if I hook it up to the led driver, which can go up to 34V. What if the reason the bulbs never lighted up was because all along I under powered it with 12V
OMFG i was in the exactly same boat, i eventually gave up that c300 and yield to one has LED but lower packages ... I was scared of doing such big project cos i have no ****ing idea at all lol
06-24-2015, 06:07 PM
Holly smoke, for a year and a half, I struggled and experimented with all kinds of chinese led while the solution was so simple and right in front of me 
It was truly a do-it-yourself as there was no schema, drawing, or guides to consult. I had to rely on my limited intelligence to figure things out 
