A few months ago I installed an HID kit I bought off Ebay on my 96 E320. I know now that buying this kit was a mistake because if I would have known about that stupid warning light I would have just waited to buy OEM. But Im stuck with it, so I decided to get a resistor and wire it in to correct the problem. I saw someone elses post about wiring in a 1k Ohm 1/2 Watt resistor in parallel. So I decided to go that route. I tried wiring it in before the original plug, and after..neither worked...Still have warning light. So I saw these resistors on this LED site claiming that they would remove warning light also when wired up in parallel. I wired them in before and after the original connecter, again, and still have the problem. I have been searching and trying to figure this all out for about 7 hours straight now. Is there any hope? or am I stuck in going to the dealer and have them activate the HID option via Star diagnostic? Please help me, Im at wits end. Thanks.

 

The problem with ballast is that they draw more (much more) power than halogen during boot up, but much less pass boot (operation). So if you put too high of a resistor, your ballast can't boot. Not enough resistant, you might have that dreadly "lamp failure" msg. The problem is more in aftermarket HID kit, where voltage stabilization and current draw is too much difference during boot & run, and everyone know how sensitive Mercedes is when dealing with electrical V/A that's out of operational range. Even when you use some of the OEM ballast, you might still have that Lamp Fail msg (while some aftermarket HID ballast cause no msg at all), it's all depend on how the ballast draw power to run the bulb.

Couple options you have here:

1. You might want to put in a potentiometer (low resistant one), and play around with it (and make sure ballast still boot). You will have to try with portable battery, not a good idea to try this directly in your car. Once you have the pot at the limit where current during run is about 7A, you can try it in your car. This is lesser in work, but risk if screw up is ..., well, quite badly. It's a bit tricky, since the current have to be to handle diff current during boot and operation.

2. Safer effort, but more work: build a relay wiring harhness. The power to run the ballast will come directly from the battery. The power from the light switch will drive the relay on/off (therefore turn on/off the light). Since the power to boot/run the ballast come directly from the battery, you wouldn't have to deal with power fluntuation between boot/run in the wiring harhness. Since the relay by itself would draw too little power compared to halogen (and therefore cause L.F msg), you then put a resistor between the wire comeout from light control switch and the relay, play around with the resistor until it matchs the current that the comparable halogen draw. Put a diods so that when you turn off the light, there's no backward flow. This will be more work, but almost guarantee to fix most "lamp failure" msg that notoriously known in German cars when doing light upgrade.

3. Change ballast & bulb to those use by OEM Mercedes. Or use the one from Lexus.

Unfortunately, on the 96, there's no way to use the StarDiagnostic to configure it to xenon exist (that's only for later model).

 

Zam......you're good

 

Thanks for the help. I guess im Owned untill I figure all this out. Ill probably look into the OEM kit. This really sucks for me, guess there is no easy fix. Thanks again

 

If it's any help. On my '97 I retro'd some Hella III ballasts w/ no problems or lamps whatsoever. I think the Hella ballasts and the manufacters for Lexus should pose no problem. Also, don't forget to upgrade the fuse for both low beams. Mine didn't blow initially as the stock fuse is a 10A? I bumped it up to a 15 or 30 and no problems....

If there was something I said wrong, Zam will holla!

 

My HID's are german made aftermarket ones..what i know is after plugigng them up, my ECu was actually reprogrammed somewhat, and this was to sync with the system, so the lights off warning doesn't come on. It registers it like a regular bulb, and had one of the bulbs blown, and the warning came on as normal.

brand was Altech, but the ballast and bulbs were from philips..

no probs..

 

I have some Hella Ballasts on my Civic. I think Ill try to change the fuses and switch out the crappy ballasts with the Hella and see what happends. Ill post up my results. Oh, and Zam, there is no way to program HID's into the computer even though it is an option on the 96? LMK, Im confused as to why.