Well, last week, with great difficulty, I swapped out the Osram H7U 55W stock bulb for a Philips Diamond Vision H7 55W bulb. Since I didn't know how to change the drivers side bulb, I took the car to the dealership and to my surprise, after begging them to betray MB's policy and install my aftermarket Philips bulb, they changed it for free. I tipped the guy $10 as it took him only 15-20 minutes (in comparison to the 2.5 hours it took for me to put in the passenger side bulb - ha!)

Well, hopefully these new bulbs won't melt the headlight housing. They won't melt the housings, will they? Jeez, I hope not. if anyone has had experience with these bulbs melting the wiring harness, please comment and I will remove these immediately! Also, does anyone know what the "U" designation means on the stock bulb? The stock bulb was H7U, while the Philips are just H7 with no U.

With an allen wrench, I easily shifted the new lights up to illuminate where I was driving better. Since I wasn't counting how many twists I made in the headlight adjustment slot, I don't think the lights have a level beam pattern. How important is this? Is there a way to perfectly level the lights?

Besides those few worries, I drove up and down my street with the new lights after adjusting them up. The lights have a 5000K color temp., so they are pretty blue, not crisp white like my S550 with bixenons, but I think I read somewhere that the lights turn white after driving for 10 or so minutes. The lights match the LED's very nicely, but my parking lights are stock, so they are still yellow. Even though I still have yellow parking lights, from a distance, the lights are EXTREMELY BRIGHT AND WHITE, which is what I was aiming for. The lights illuminate the road surface, IMO, more than the stock bulbs, which is strange since a higher color temp. usually means less output. I guess the output appears to be more since I raised the light cutoff level to illuminate the road more. This seemed to make the biggest difference. Some people were driving on the road during my initial test drive and I didn't get flashed, so I guess the installation was a success! If you have any questions, feel free to comment. I'll post pics ASAP

 

The best test is to drive them on a dark rainy night.

 

Looks pretty good! Although it's hard to capture the true effect in photos. Would you be able to provide a link as to where you purchased these bulbs? Thanks!

 

This is how I adjusted my bulbs after changing them out....backed into my garage as far as possible and shut the garage door. Turned on the headlights and then use a level to put a strip of painters tape across the garage door as a reference point. Then you can adjust each bulb independently to get same level. I did make driver side SLIGHTLY lower than passenger side so as to not shine into on coming traffic. After raising stock level slightly and using above approach have been driving at night without a single 'flash' from oncoming traffic.

 

I'd be curious to see how long these last. With halogen, the light that burns twice as bright burns half as long from my experience. I'd rather make the hockey sticks less bright to match

 

Adding lights that produce more glare (pretty evident in your photos - that is an incredible amount of glare) and then raising them to point at oncoming drivers (combined with raising the driver's side even more to match the pax side) is illegal and foolish.

From a UK website selling the bulbs

"Diamond Vision can be used without making any changes or modifications to your vehicle. They just need to be exchanged with the bulbs that you are currently using. This product is not road legal within the EU."

From a site selling to the US

• This item will be shipped from China
• Estimated Shipping weight: 0.20 Kg
• This item can be shipped to ALL destinations around the world.
• For off road use only in the U.S.A

US regulations do not have an exemption for "off road." If it can be installed in a road legal car then the parts need to meet all the US regs for that part.


In addition, the dealer that installed those bulbs s guilty of violating Federal law and is subject to a hefty fine and loss of operating license.


While an individual isn't subject to those penalties, state or local jurisdictions may decide to enforce the regulations for "operating unsafe equipment." In theory (and I've heard of all these happening) that could include tickets and impound/tow.


The reasons are quite simple - these illegal lights actually decrease vision (although the brain is tricked into believing the light is "brighter") and it blinds oncoming traffic - the blinding of oncoming traffic is quite evident from the photos.



"

 

Lol CEB
I parked my E next to my S halfway in the garage, bent down to see the light beams and the glare, and my S with bixenons has more glare. I also adjusted the lights to the same level as my S with stock bixenons so it shouldn't be a problem. The last picture was taken from ground level, not from where a driver would be sitting in another sedan. Honestly, all cars with bixenons are blinding so even though I installed these illegal lights, it's not like I'm blinding other people more. It's not like people are going to go close up to my car and stare into the lights hahaha

 

You can, of course, do as you like, but if you adjusted your lights in your garage then they certainly aren't adjusted correctly, nor can you determine glare from the privacy of your garage.

You now know what the law is. Let's just hope that you fix it before you cause someone else to have an accident.

 

Lou Diamond Phillips- he's awesome...........

 

any chance you could retake them with a better camera.. no offense but they pics are very grainy... looks like it was the same camera used for the 'bigfoot' pictures

 

Does anyone know of an aftermarket bulb that will give better lighting than the stock but not going Xenon? My car is at the shop and I want to get them ASAP (can't wait for shipping from China)