Not sure haw many have come across this. My drivers side bulb burnt out. Picked up a couple Silverstar Ultras as I always change headlights in pairs and wanted some a bit brighter anyway. Its night, working in the driveway with a flashlight. Not problems with the install. Passenger side is super easy when you pull the air box. Anyway, I needed to run to the store, get about 100 ft down the road and the right headlights goes out. WTF! Spend $50 on a pair of bulbs and it lasts 3 minutes! Back to the driveway. Tack off the cover and notice that there is NO insulation on the wires for about 2 inches, the wires touched and blew the fuse. Damn old insulation! Must have used the same stuff they used on the earlier engine harnesses. The insulation was just crumbling. Used electricians tape to cover it up and it now good to go. Checked the other side, same thing although not quite as bad. When I get the time, I'm thinking of pulling the headlights and re-wiring the things. Good enough for now though. Make sure you check the wires when replacing the headlight bulbs!

 

Between about 1992 and 1996, virtually ALL Mercedes-Benz produced, from the cheapest to the opulent, were equipped with certain wiring components that disintegrated over time (e.g. 1992 to 1995 S-class and SL-class, 1992-1996 E-class, 1994-1996 C-class). The wiring harness insulation cracked and eventually turned into dust. There was no way of stopping this from happening, for the wire insulation purposefully used "green" biodegradable wiring harness insulation material.

Bare wires started shorting and to save cost and weight, with the further adoption of the CAN-Bus node topology and voltage encoding occurring during this time frame, very strange things began happening to MB vehicles of this time-frame.

While owners thought they had purchased a car manufactured using only the very best of materials and engineering practice, there was never a recall and as a result was a bonanza for MB service departments.

While aware of that issue when I purchased my 2001 CLK Cabriolet, while mechanically the engine/transmission history of the W208 has been bullet proof. Unfortunately, as a long time forum member, much of the materials and engineering still remains suspect, especially in the electrical's.

Specifically.......

I'm not only referring to the ubiquitous, failures of the dash to display temperature/time.

The number of transmission issues. Your W208 owners manual states that that transmission has a lifetime fill and never requiring servicing. The MB engineers were so sure, that they soon after the W208 introduction, they even eliminated the drain in the torques converter. However, after transmission failure analysis, they soon changed their minds and their current recommendation is to service the transmission at 40K miles (e.g. filter and fluid) and every 40K miles thereafter. Additionally, there have been countless reports of transmission 'limp' mode occurrences, usually due to leaking pilot bushings and/or liquid spills on the center console, that fry the electronics in the main transmission control or transmission shift modules.

Recently, upon braking, I got a lamp out warning. Which outside lamp? Hey, my prior 1994 BMW Cabriolet at least identified the lamp out. Upon further investigation, I found every lamp on my trunk lid out (e.g. reverse, rear fog, tag etc.), in addition to other CANBus control modules acting up (e.g upon opening trunk, outside mirrors operated, as well as the electrical radiator fan turning on full blast etc.. Being a retired electrical engineer, I put 1 and 1 together, and opened up the protective sleeve of the wiring harness at the trunk hinge. Sure enough, I found that the ground wire, between the truck lid and quarter panel panel, was severed. Replaced it with a more flexible wire and all is well today.

IMHO, many of the anomalies seem to first occur in warm weather climates (e.g. main battery, seals on the power roof hydraulic cylinders etc.).

Every W208 needs to know, that in their wisdom, MB engineers decided to not put rear brake pad sensors on the rear axle (e.g. sensors are only on the left and right front axle wheels). What were they thinking?

The good news is that although, if you're handy, the W208 remains as one of the last treasures.

 

The same crap is happening to the newer models: specifically to my 2008 ML350. I went to change out the high beam bulbs and all of the wiring insulation is cracking and falling off in chunks (see photo.) I used to have a 1994 SL500 and it had the same problem with the engine harness. I don't know why Daimler opts for the cheap *** wiring because a buyer would expect the wiring to last for more than 8 years.


This is the wiring insulation of the high beam (cap removed) light, passenger side. This is totally unacceptable.

 

There should be a huge lawsuit over this and a huge recall, just like the takata airbags.
So that picture is a 2008? So do we have to worry about a 2002 having this problem too?
So they decided to make the insulation out of the same stuff all our plastic grocery bags are made of. That is plastic mixed with corn starch.