The driver side low beam on my 06 55 finally died the other day. I'm looking at OEM replacements on FCP and they're quite pricey. Has anyone tried using modern LED style headlights in the proper bases or whatever so they're plug and play? The low beams have always been trash on my car, and from what I understand, the CL just has crappy headlights. Mine are even and aimed correctly, they've just never really seemed to have much power and only project light a little ways out in front of the car, whereas the high beams are great, but obviously I can't leave those on all the time.

 

you got no replies b/c you didn't say low beam bulb (not headlight)... to answer your question, I've searched this Board today and it seems that the Halogen H7 bulbs used in a lot of Mercedes can be replaced with an H7 LED... which these days are just 2 sided and don't shine where they're not supposed to, like the LED bulbs from 5-10 years ago.

I have just bought on Amazon fo rmy 2012 E350 Coupe the Philips UltinonSport H7 LED Bulb set. I'll come back to report if there are any issues.

Otherwide if you want to stick with Halogen, the current Sylvania H7 Silverstar Ultra is supposed to put out a little bit more light than your IEM H7 Halogen bulbs

 

I'm going to change my reply to you based upon some reading I did yesterday.

It appears to me that unless a person is willing to change out the mirrored reflecting assembly (I think that is called the "projector"), changing from Halogen (which the "reflector" is designed to optimize) to LED is possibly a reduction in ability to light up an area more than 10' from the vehicle. Putting LED H7 bulbs into an OEM headlight assembly is like mating a 1000 horse power twin turbo v12 engine with a transmission that can only handle 300 horse power. There is no practical positive effect in the vehicle's ability to put power onto the road. It's bad engineering. Just as placing an LED bulb in a projector designed to reflect a halogen bulb is bad engineering.

That is all theory. I have ordered from Amazon the Philips UltinonSport LED H7, and also the Philips X-tremeVision Pro 150 Halogen H7 bulb for my 2012 E350 Coupe. I will install one in the left low beam, and one in the right, and see which gives me better lighting 40' down the road. What I've read is that the LED at 40' gives peak brightness on the street surface, not on objects 3' of 5' above the street, wasting the lumens on irrelevant places due to the unfocused beam of an LED bulb in a Halogen bulb designed projector. We shall see. At least that is my plan. I am not sure I will be able to actually install the LED and make it work, but I hope to. I am coming off of the Sylvania Silverstar Ultra H7 for my low beams which are burnt out.

Further on the halogen optimization idea -- a halogen bulb designed to ouput twice the photons that the OEM halogen bulb will output will last maybe 25% as long as the OEM bulb. In my vehicle, I can easily access the left headlight assembly through a hinged cutout opening in the wheel well liner near the headlight assembly. So having to replace high lumen Halogen bulbs every 250 hours vs. every 1000 hours for low lumen OEM halogen bulbs is not a big deal. With an E class W212, or any other Mercedes that requires the removal of the wheel well liner to get to the left headlight assembly... that to me seems like a nightmare... every 250 hours jacking up the car and removing a bunch of bolts and tabs to remove the wheel well liner? Madness (and crappy engineering).

 

Received both Philips bulb sets. Almost dark so I'll do the actual vision test in about an hour... however

the Philips LED isn't what I thought it was. The black plastic housing into which the bulb is set, and which is the equivalent of the aluminum housing into which the halogen bulb is seated... isn't the same. There is no way to push the LED into its headlight assembly holder, make a quarter turn, and secure it. I guess there has to be an adapter metal bracket appropriate to a C207 headlight that I would need to attac to the LED black plastic portion, that would then do the quarter turn securing into the headlight assembly..

Light quality:

I temporarily situated the LED into the right headlight low beam, and properly situated the Halogen in the left low beam.

This is super interesting, and quite personal I'm finding. I am familiar with color temperature... I have some flashlights in 519A at 3500K, 4500k and 5000k. Another flashlight using the famous and beloved 219B emitter with its slightly rosy hue in 4500k, and another using a GT FC40 emitter, slightly goldish, at 4500K. All of them are above average in CRI. Our kitchen lights used to be 3000k, and are now 4000K, and I'm finding I preferred the 3000K. On the Philips Halogen, without any blue coating, I'm seeing under 3500K, and its a very pleasing light especially on a very dark street. 6000 Kelvin from the Philips LED is quite stark, quite unappealing, in lighting a dark street. They both light the street surface to about 30', with the LED going perhaps 5' further. The LED also seems to light a little more of the side of the road compared to the Halogen... not a lot, maybe 2-3' more width. Aside from the 6000K being not my favorite, the LED also has a weakness in that there is a hot spot about 20' out, approx in the center of its beam spread. Slightly distracting.

I'm not sure which I will end up going with, assuming I can figure out how to secure the LED into my C207 low beam headlight assembly. I suspect the LED will be slightly safer, given the very slightly longer throw, and very slightly wider beam pattern, with the Halogen being much more pleasing. The Halogen gives a very even light coverage with no hot spot

 

f/u to above, II tried for about 10 minutes and still could not figure out how to secure the Philips LED into the C207 low beam housing. And since I was 50/50 on whether I even preferred it to the philips Halogen, I am returning them to Amazon. The Amazon fitment chart shows the LED is supposed to fit the C207, but how is a mystery to me. The exact shape of the black plastic ring at the base of the LED is not anywhere near the shape of the aluminum ring at the base of a C207 halogen bulb.

 

EDIT wrong thread EDIT

 

Your car will be slightly different in the headlight assembly but probably similar issues and results.

https://mbworld.org/forums/cl55-amg-...tofitlabs.html

 

Just wanted ti follow up with you on this thread. Yes, you do need an adapter that fits on the Phillips LED to twist into to the housing ($7 on Amazon for a pair) . My question is for the Phillips LEDs did you get any Canbus error messages?

I am asking this because Amazon now has a bunch of plug and play LEDs (H7). I tried the Auxito and Fahrenheit brands from Amazon) and they plug into the OEM base and don’t need any adapter for the C207 but the low beams lighting is horrible and they give an error message to check the bulb. So I am willing to go with an adapter if I don’t give an error message.

 

The only way I have found to solve the poor lighting on these cars is to replace the entire projector system with new HID. I used Morimotos and they are great. This will require some work and time, very finicky work but the results are good.

https://mbworld.org/forums/cl55-amg-...m_content=post

 

Precisely. Check if the projectors are burned - they most likely are. Replacing the bulbs will not solve the issue. Check the wiring while you're at it as well. That might be a larger issue than you imagine

Here's how I did it, also with Morimoto projectors: https://absolutecarmods.com/projector-retrofit/

Throw some projector fogs on with either HIDs or LEDs like I did and you'll have all the light you ever wanted.