Hey everyone! It's been a while since I posted on here. I was a quite active member back when I had my ML. I just recently acquired a 2001 CLK430 and are in love with it! I've had it for 3 weeks now and have done a ton to it already.

Of these things, I received and installed projector headlights from eBay today. They look AMAZING! They came pre-installed with xenons and all necessary bulbs. All I did was remove the old headlamps and made the connections - just clips right in!

Tonight, while driving I experienced a weird phenomenon. I noticed that the interior lights (radio, a/c, instrument cluster, etc...) were all flickering. After about 2 minutes I get BAS/ESP warning lights! I parked and noticed that all the interior lights were flickering again (kind of like a strobe light). I started driving again and came to a stop at at stop sign. Before I came to a complete stop, the BAS, ESP, and ABS now came on and cleared. The interior lights were still flickering.

I decided to pull over into a parking lot and shut the car off. I sat for 5 minutes wondering WTF??? I went to start the car again, however, the ignition wont turn -- I had NO power! So I immediately thought of the headlights, as they were the obvious reason. I disconnected the connections to make a correlation and went to start the car. I had power! I was able to start the car and everything was normal. NO BAS/ESP/ABS. So I turned the car off and re-connected the headlights. I was able to start the car as I had not yet turn on the headlights. I backed out and then proceeded. I turned on the headlights and they were working fine. NO BAS, ESP or ABS, however they were in the malfunction part of the instrument cluster.

I was able to get home fine and everything works as normal now. I have had them installed for 8 hours now and already are getting bad signs.

Please let me know what you think this may be. I personally think that the ballasts/headlights are sucking up WAYYYY too much power. What can I solve this problem with? I may take it to the shop tomorrow and have it checked providing the guy is available.

Thank you in advanced for all your help!

 

i'm just gonna take a stab at it and say it's your HID balasts. because cheap HID balasts drain way too much and take too much curent from your electrical system hint the defective bulb warning, the reason that bulb come on is because the curent either drops or increses and that is exactly why when you put LED bulbs the warning goues off because the LEDs drain less than regular bulb and thats why you have to use resistors to bypass the problem by tricking the system into thinking the curent level flowing through that bulb station is ok. now back to your problem when you buy these lights with HIDs they fit them with the cheapest stuff in the market. there are 3 companies that make these projector headlight and about 50 that make the HID lkits and they are all diffrent qualities. in your case the head light itself doesnt matter but you need to go with a high quality HID kit not those cheap ones that some company installs on their light and sell as a jid projectors. Ive had my setup for over 3 years and absolutly no problems ever and i made a spare set for just in case which i just sold today, do some research and buy a good HID kit and install them on there if you need a quality HID kit that will accomdate to a mercedes without any errors let me know and i can get you and send you a set from my source but it is a pretty penny, you get what you pay for right. Best of luck to you and hope this helped.

 

I don't know what the guy above my post said, my ADD kicked in after the first line, what with no punctuation or sentence structure...

Does the new HID kit have capacitors inline on the low voltage side?

Are you sure you've got no shorts in the new lighting system?

Disconnect the new lamps and only connect one at a time, see which side is misbehaving.

 

Just thinking about headlight replacement, and in looking on-line and reading member posts I've managed to get completely confused. I like the look of the Spyder black halos at $500ish. Two questions.....are they any good?......and will they bolt into my 2001 CLK430 Cabriolet (AMG sport package) without me having to re-invent my wiring harness, and/or pull the engine/transmission to get it accomplished?
I also read on one headlight website that the package would not work on cars equipped with stock zenon headlights?......I guess that's three questions

 

Hello all new to the wed site.. I dont"t know how to post a new thread. But I have a 02 clk 430 with halogen lights. I've just purchase headlights from a clk55 xenon. what wiring will I have to do to get them to work correctly. Also I didn't get the plug from the guy for wiring. Any insite out there?? Thanks