southernwake

Sunday night after work I was driving home and I noticed a flash of light in front of my car and I was the only one on the road. I was glancing down at my speedometer when I caught it out of the corner of my eye. So I watched and watched and finally it happened again. It is a bright flash of light that is gone before you can blink, almost as if I bumped the switch to to flash my high beams. It happened 3 times Sunday on the way home, I thought maybe I was seeing things since I suffered a concussion Friday night and this was my first time driving at night since then.

However it happened again last night as well, only once this time. Im not losing my lights, like one is flickering then going out ( i researched it a little bit and found that that seems to be a problem and possible cause is the ignitor) When I got home I left the car running and the headlight on, and sat in front of it and it didnt happen again. From what I can tell its both sides cause it flashes out in front and to the sides like the high beam would.

I am going to check the connections tomorrow morning and see what if maybe they are loose. I was just hoping maybe I could get some other things to check or consider.

They are stock headlights by the way ( frosty lens) Sorry for the lengthy post but wanted to give as much detail as possible.

macbryanie

When my back tail light went out it displayed on the instrument panel that it was out. malfunction (check rear driver brake light..or something like that) I assumed the same would happen with the headlights.

southernwake

Sorry forgot to add that, there was no message in the display. I have had a plug come loose for the blinker and it popped up an error message. For this flicker though I am not getting any message.

AMG Sleeper

sounds like what happened to me last year, bad ignitor... my car was doing the same flickering a few weeks ago, but fortunately it has since stopped. you can probably pick one up on ebay... good luck!

dre5373

Is the ignitor seperate from the ballast? What confuses me is the OP says that the flicker is present in BOTH headlights. Should be two seperate setups of ignitors/ballasts...

element913

The ignitor on my car went out shortly after I upgraded to HID's. Rather than deal with the hassle of taking the headlight apart to replace the bad (and prone to go bad) ignitor, or using the MB recall kit (which puts the ignitor in the dustcap), I just bought a pair of Morimoto 3Five ballasts from TheRetrofitSource.com for ~$100. Here's a link:

http://www.theretrofitsource.com/pro...roducts_id=160



I mounted the ballast using zip ties in the corner just above the headlight and cut a small hole in the dustcap to allow the d2s connector to get to the bulb. It's a little ghetto, but this way I can just swap out the whole ballast if it fails and I don't have to take apart the headlight. Plus since I bought a pair of them, I have a spare if anything happens in the future (when the other prone-to-failure ballast goes out).

I've had them about a year now with no problems. There is a slight difference in bulb warm-up time, the morimotos take about 25 seconds (light is instant, but blue for a few seconds) as opposed to the factory 5 seconds, but I don't really mind. One feature I liked was that the internals are potted in epoxy to prevent any water or air (with water) from getting inside and causing corrosion.

djfmf

How do you install/replace a ballast? Both my low beams went out so i bought a ddm tuning ballast kit. The guys says i will have to splice wires, but where is the oe ballast, what does it look like? I just want to be able to drive my car at night again.

ruben65

I had my headlight flicker as well, they initially did a recall of some of the electronic components, it was still happening after, turned out to be a malfunctioning auto-level motor spazing out, they replaced the entire headlight unit and no issues since.

SabbathC55

Funny, I just logged in to research this here. Thiis started for me last year during the very cold parts of winter (pass side) By spring/summer it went away. During the last month, flicker came back and was more sever. Then it stopped and moved to the other side where the flicker was really bad. Brought it in, they replaced the xenon bulbs. $480. So far no flickering. Hopefully it's fixed - the alternatives are much more costly. They were thinking it could have been a bad control module but so far appears to have been the bulbs- they were the original ones

djfmf

I would not pay for bulbs if it cost that much.

SabbathC55

Keep in mind my car is under warranty, so if they discovered during the diagnostic that it was the control module, they would probably cover it. Bulbs however are not. The $480 wasn't just for the bulbs, I also had them clean the mirror turn signal connectors (there's a nice DIY write up here), a really good car wash and a C300 loaner for the day.

If you want to tackle this yourself, the replacement bulbs are Part# 910139000001 (dealer charged me $156 each) but you can order these online through Mercedes Parts Center for $98 each. However there is a risk that replacing the bulbs won't solve the problem, you could have a control module out or the ballasts.

The error codes are B2577

southernwake

That is one point I forgot to mention, SabbathC55 brought it up, Both times it did it was cold, low 40's high 30's. I have not had it do it since, now that we are having some warmer nights.

I checked the connections and they were all good. I will continue to monitor this and see what progresses. Push come to shove this will give me the "reason" to buy new headlights.

number_one_c55

Seen many of these issues at work including on my own car. Could be a bulb swap bulbs side to side to see if the issue moves. Could also be a control unit these are notorious for going faulty. Start with the bulb.

southernwake

Thanks number_one_c55, I will try the bulb first and see if there is any change.