zx11blade

Here goes: Got the dreaded "Lamp Failure" message. Checked and found the driver's side rear brake light out. Changed the bulb and 2 days later "Lamp Failure" again. Checked lights and found inner driver's side bulb not on. Changed bulb, but this time the "Lamp Failure" message appeared everytime I hit the brakes. I also changed the brake lamp switch. I cleaned the tail light assembly and still Lamp Failure. I stopped at the dealer and after he stepped on the brake all the bulbs worked. Then he turned on the headlights and the brake lights came on without stepping on the brake pedal. When he did step on the brake pedal the brake lights just dimmed alittle. Of course he was at a loss of words as to what the problem is. Any ideas????

Gregs210

Sorry to hear of this. There was another post a while back on this exact thing. The indie the member took it to cleaned all of the contacts for the bulbs in the taillights and that fixed it, but noted that if it happened again, they'd have to replace the taillights. If you search you should find it; with luck cleaning the contacts will work on yours, too.

Good luck and let us know.

Top Jimmy

After the Stealership clean the bulb contacts (and my walet) it worked for only two days. I ended up changing out the entire LH Tail light assembly. My only regret is not upgrading to the 00-02 versions.

Read more "Lamp failure" comentary here:

https://mbworld.org/forums/e-class-w210/106103-lamp-failure.html

zx11blade

Well, it's not the brake lamp switch or the tail light assembly. Anyone have problems with the headlight switch causing problems similiar to these?

fritza2tt

I had one a while back, it like to drove me nuts. The warning would come on and when I checked, everything was working! Was not able to fix the problem until the bulb that caused it fell out of the socket. It had been loose all along, just enough to trigger the lamp warning.
This way I learned to always to check the small expense items first myself, before looking for help.