paulhu

The footwell courtesy lights (when you open doors) are bright, but the footwell ambient lights are very dim. Wear a pair of white socks at night, and you will see that all four ambient lights are very dim. I may be wrong, are the four footwell courtesy lights the same four footwell ambient lights?

onpaws

By the way, have you noticed the ambient lighting pointed down at the Gear knob area, a la E46? There is a faint orange LED pointing down.

paulhu

I finally verified the ambient light situation for my 2004 E500. The courtesy lights (bright when you open car door) are the ambient lights also. The light on the front driver's side is located under the steering wheel, but closer to the brake pedal. The front passenger's light is under the glove compartment. If you sit at the back seats, the two rear lights are both under front driver's and passenger's seats pointing towards rear passenger's foot. When the ingition is turned on, headlights are on, the four footwell courtesy lights become the ambient lights, very dim, but detectable. I laid on my back to verify the front footwell lights; the rear footwell lights, you can see them as soon as you sit in the back seats. Inside of the car must be very dark in order to see the ambient lights.

ATS

The other night I drove into cottage country and I could see the illuminated door handles.. It looked amazingly cool. It just goes to show how much light pollution from the cities there really is. I would say park the car in complete darkness and stay there for a few minutes. Wait for your eyes to adjust and you will see all the illuminated areas in your car..

onpaws

Yes! I stand corrected, there are indeed ambient lights in many parts of this car!!! including footwells. Wow...

konigstiger

Absolutely – one for all, and all for one. One thing though the person who my dealer refers to as the MBUSA Product & Delivery Specialist… I think I saw him behind the snack bar counter filling orders not too long ago. One can only hope that is not what they mean by product and delivery specialist.

Everyone certainly is entitled to their likes, dislikes and opinions but more importantly we ALL paid for this feature and some did not get what they paid for. Apparently Scotty isn’t giving us all she’s got.

Now this is how our manual is supposed to read!

BoSoxFan

I have them but I had to use a white sheet of paper to detect them.

CALBenzo

I finally checked, and I have them. They aren't as dim as others report, at least to me. It is bright enough to light up my hand when I put it under the steering wheel post.

konigstiger

DaveFr, DWP, etenn, Hart_113, jim256, jprescott, Oslo, plocjim

My (our) inquiry has officially escalated from the dealership level, through the MBUSA Regional Operations Manager, and has been passed on to his MBUSA Service and Parts Operations Manager of which I expect contact in the very near future. I just wanted all those who do not have ambient lighting to their foot wells to be assured that I will not allow this to fall to the wayside.

DWP

Thank you for the effort thus far.

Of the eight names, seven list their model year of car in their posts. Five of those are '03 and two are '04, but the two '04s are in Oz and Norway, whereas the five '03s are in the US. The follow-up question I would pose would be, how many of the seven had the M-B software patch for the early-production audio problems applied to their car? It's been applied to my car, although I have no idea whether it had footwell ambient lights before the patch was applied.

Baby Jocko

I'm sure you guys checked and re-checked, but I would bet that you all have the abient lighting in the footwells. The lighting is extremely dim and unless you are in complete darkness and have the ambient light setting set to its maximum setting, they are difficult to even notice.

DWP

2003 E500 Footwell Ambient Light Test Results

Test Conditions:

Motor: Running

Light Switch: On “Auto”

Outside light: Totally dark; in a large city park well away from any streetlights and several hours after sunset

Mojo: Working

Test Results:

White paper test: Fail

White socks test: Fail

White shoes test: Fail (no white shoes after Labor Day)

Stick-head-under-
dash-and-look-
directly-at-courtesy-
lights-for-even-the-
faintest glow test: Fail

glojo

BUT.... Were they working?????


Regards,
John
Going to bed in a minute

CaptMike

I do have the footwell ambiant lighting. Also have the puddle light under the bottom of the doors AND bottom of each outside mirror.

All come on when door is unlocked with remote AND in the "night" mode.
Door DOES NOT need to be opened only unlocked.

konigstiger

Cannot speak for the others but in my case confirmation was given by my dealer’s shop foreman.

konigstiger

Could be possible but I did ask the shop foreman if he thought it could have been caused by software flashes or upgrades and his position was more than likely not since there were no error codes displayed when applied. Question comes to mind, if caused by a software glitch as you suggest would it not affect all ambient lighting and not isolate itself to a few locations? Guess we'll have to wait and see.

DWP

Speaking just in speculation, and not from any particular knowledge - the footwell ambient lights have to execute a more complex logic than, say, the front and rear overhead ambient lights. The overhead ambient lights just go off and on with the external lights and/or the outside light level. Based on what others have said, the bulbs that provide footwell ambient lights function as courtesy lights and light brightly when Condition A is present (when a door is open and for a few seconds after closing) but glow dimly when (say) Conditions B, C and D are present (e.g, lights on, motor running, doors closed). That kind of logic could be electromechanical, but with the W211 it's more likely to be in software, and with software you get the potential for bugs.

MBenzNL

I haven't read through this thread (too many posts), but this is a setting that can be switched off with stardiagnose...or switched on...when the car has the lights already...

greetingz,

jim256

Mine is a very early '03 (9/02 prod'n), and no ambient footwell lights. I did not have an audio patch, and the ambient footwell lights were not ever there. The door-open footwell lights work as expected. I know the ambient footwells are not there because I was early-on figuring out the front vs rear overhead ambients and looked everything over fairly well. At the time I assumed the footwell reference must have been illumination from the overheads. Obviously I was misguided.

konigstiger

Am I correct in understanding you to say that ambient lighting can be switched on/off with star diagnose as a total feature (i.e.: all locations) and you are not referring to individual locations (i.e.: foot wells)?

etenn

My E500 is a very late '03 replacement build..August '03.

Like DWP...I rechecked and I do not have the footwell lighting.

I do not have the "door handle" lighting mentioned here either. The only lights on the interior doors are on the window switches, memory, and mirror adjustment. Nothing on the door handles.

Kar don

wow that sucks! I love ambient door handle and footwell lighting. Hope you guys find out what the issue is!

DWP

The door pull lighting is more "locator" than "ambient", and is very faint. Considering that the door pull recess is flat black, I can't even see the light unless it is pitch dark outside or I stick a finger directly under the light source, which is the little clear strip at the top of the door pull recess. The glow is faintly visible by looking directly at the little clear strip - not an easy thing to do without opening the door.

That said, I'm not excluding the possibility that etenn doesn't have door pull lights at all. The fact that something like 90% of the poll respondents have footwell ambient lights hasn't activated them in my car.

etenn

I did another check on the door handle lights. I found the little "clear strip" and checked again in pitch dark last night. It was there! It is so dim that I could not see it before.

Now...if I can find the footwell ambient light. :p

konigstiger

Char03, DaveFr, DWP, etenn, Hart_113, jim256, jprescott, Oslo, plocjim

Guys, please check your Private Mail. Jim256 your PM is not activated nor can I email please supply an avenue for me to reach you other than publicly. Thanks.