Well, I was not ready for what I thought will be a routine light bulb change. After an hour spent in trying to change the damn thing I gave up and took the car to my friend who is a benz mechanic. I am a bit of a gym rat so having bigger then average forearms did not help.

I was chaning the driver side bulb and it seems that the passanger side has more room to work.

I searched for tips on how to change it and did not really find anything that spoke about the possible issues.

So here it is:

If you think that your forearm or hand is bigger then average you might not want to do it your self.

Make sure that before you take the cover of a headlight assembly you wear a long sleeve shirt because it is VERY tight and you will end up with DEEP scratches unless you have some kind of protection on your wrists.

Before you take the ballast of the top of the light bulb remember that the arrow is pointing down toward the ground. Thats how you will put it back once you have inserted a new bulb.

Take the ballst off by lightly twisiting it in the direction that it states.

There are two pins that hold the light bulb in place. Remove the pins and take out the bulb.

Once you are inserting the new bulb, DO NOT touch the bulb with your bare hands as oil will reduce its longevity.

Once its time to put the ballst back on top of light bulb make sure that all the rings that twist are in place. After I took mine off and then tried to put it back on i have moved some of the rings that help with the tightening and could not tighten it because of that. That was the part that gave me the most problems.

You can buy the bulbs at the dealer for $300 or you can use the AUTOHAUSAZ.COM and get them for $89.

My car is a 2005 and have gotten 80,000 miles out of my xenon light bulbs. The way you will know it is going bad is when it turns purple and start to flicker(thats obvious).

There will probably be a lot more posts relating to that as peoples cars start to age and xenons will have to be changed.

I wish you all more success when changing your own light bulbs.

Dan

 

I was told by my mechanic that the "oil on you hands" longevity issue only applies to halogen bulbs, not Xenon. That said, probably best to keep the bulb clean anyways. Did you notice a difference in color between your new bulb and old bulb. I just had my passenger side headlamp assembly replaced and now my new one puts off a yellowish color (upon start up it is white, then over a few minutes fades to a pale yellow), and the older driver side headlamp puts off a white light. Also, there is something that looks like an optical lense (half round clear glass "eyeball")...the eyeball on my new one is clear, and the eyeball on my older headlamp is cloudy. I was told there is some "burn-in" time required for the lights to match, and over time the new eyeball will get cloudy too. It has been two months and my new bulb still looks pale yellow. If you want the lights to match, perhaps it is best to replace both bulbs at the same time, and if possible, clean the eyeball on the old one.

 

I did not notice any big difference between the new one and the existing one. I would have to agree that to get the same color you would have to change both of them at the same time.