jfmiii

Considering a C55 which checks all the boxes besides having Xenons. I'd like to replace the halogens with OEM HID Xenons but am finding very little information about part numbers, install, etc. Has anyone done this? From what I can tell, the car will need to be re-coded for the headlamps; not a big deal, I have a good MB indy. Is this a complicated install? From what I can gather, I'm looking at about $2500 in parts.

https://www.fcpeuro.com/Mercedes~Ben...rior-Lighting/

tlambert

Just my thought. I would just change the halogens to LEDs, and that’s something you should be able to do yourself.

I have a Silverado that I changed to LEDs and love them and they are super bright and have had no problems with them.

My E55 has factory Zenons and I really don’t see that much of a difference between them and the LEDs.

Check out the retrofit source.

https://www.theretrofitsource.com

jfmiii

I think I am just going to go the OEM route for HID. Seems FCP has new HID headlamps for ~$650 each. Could also get some used ones on ebay, I suppose.

From everything I've read, it is plug and play but I'll need the car coded by STAR as XENON=PRESENT. I wont have auto-leveling but the dealer or my indy doing the coding can manually adjust them.

Has anyone done this? I'm shocked by how little information there is out there on this. Maybe because the projector retrofit route is much cheaper.

JonMBZ

I think halogens look ugly and so do aftermarket items, if it was my car I would buy factory Xenons and version code to xenon=present.

Muhtish

An interesting thread to find after I started to mess with my E55 headlights yesterday.
​​​​​​⚠️ Fair warning ⚠️: once you open your lenses, be prepared to possibly have a wire insulation problem on your hands, which happened to me. Not sure how old your car is, but mine is 06 model with xenon headlights. Once you open your lenses and start messing with wires this is what could happen:


As you can see, the insulation around the wires got dried up over the period of years and became extremely brittle. Now I have a problem on my hands of insulating every single wire, as the slightest movement of wires chips more and more insulation.
Not saying this WILL happen to you, but be prepared.

I'm going to keep searching on forums to see if others ran into this and for any suggestions on how to remedy this problem.

Good luck!

Viper98912

I had this issue in a 01 VW headlight. It was a nightmare. And you're right, the more you try to fix it, the more flakes off. Complete nightmare.

Muhtish

What did you ended up doing? Re-insulating or redoing wiring?

jfmiii

Appreciate all the replies. Decided to just stay OEM and swap them new Hella headlamps from FCP Euro. Toyed with buying used xenon headlamps and going the quad projector route but think I'll just stay OEM, get my car programmed for Xenon present and be done with it.

jfmiii

Does anyone know if the active curve Xenons from a CLK will fit the C55? Is the wiring the same? Understand that putting in the headlamps to a C55 wont have auto-level or active curve but cant seem to find an answer as to whether they will fit and are plug and play+coded via STAR. Think the CLK active curve xenons are a bit better looking than the stock OEM xenons.