lcpingel

Hey all - is there a place where I can find a listing of OE parts for a 99 C43.

The reason I ask is: I recently took the car to a new-to-me dealer for some front end work (my wife got hit (while parked) by a delivery truck)...

Anyways, when the repair folks ran the VIN on my car it showed that the car was originally equipped with Xenons. I was told, "it's not a C43 if it doesn't have Xenons..."

Except, I bought the car new from a dealer in SoCal - and it was NEVER equipped with Xenons. So, when the current dealer (Northern VA) offered to restore the car to "Original Eq VIN status"....meaning Xenons, I took it... Now that I have the car back, I have Xenon low beams BUT Halogen high beams... Which, I find strange....

The only other thing I've seen on 99 C43s that my car does not have is headlamp washers....

Were these options offered that year?? I didn't think so at the time of purchase...

Anyways, how hard is it to retrofit the Xenon high beams? Since I already have the ballasts for the lowbeam Xenons, can I run high beam Xenons through those ballasts...??

Thanks for any and all input...

L.

scorchie

E-mail me your VIN and I will tell you if your car originally came with xenon headlights. I believe it was an option on 1999 cars for the US market, but that may only be 1998 cars.

Your car does not have high beam HID headlights. In general, no cars do except for those that use the low beam bulb with a shutter to illuminate higher--these are called bixenon and have an additional halogen high beam bulb. If you try to use your high beam flashers with an HID high beam bulb, there would be a couple consequences: 1) the HID bulb does not illuminate to full intensity for many seconds; 2) HID bulbs are worn out by repeatedly being turned on and off, such as the way a high beam is used for flashing.

-s-

Tump43

I have a 99 C43. It came stock with headlight washers, low beam xenons, premium Bose (8 speaker system), cd changer, rain sensor, orthopedic front seats (it came fully optioned), auto dimming rear and driver's side mirror, folding rear seats (they fold down from the trunk). I added a Benz nav. from a W208 and an integrated digital phone.

I think the options on the 99 C43 were the xenons, the rain sensor, the ortho seats and the CD changer (possibly the folding rear seats).