A friend of mine has a W212 E class and decided he wanted the inside of his headlamp housings satin black. We located a set of aftermarket headlamp housings to experiment with. We tracked them down online and they were less then half of dealer cost on the OEM light so we figured these would do for our project.

Well long story short, all of these newer style headlight manufacturers use urethane to seal the housings and boy its no easy task to separate them After and using a ton of heat and muscle we were able to get them apart. Once apart I was able to see why this light was half the cost of the OEM light :roll eyes:


We removed all of the chrome plastic finishings inside the housing and had our buddy prep them for paint. A fews hours later we had a beautiful set of satin black reflect ( contradiction ) Reassembly took place and and the lights were installed back in.

Side note : If your going to do this, pay the extra money and get the OEM housings. Fitment blew on these but after some tweaking they were in

 

Dood!! Wow! I'm still debating whether I should pull it mine apart. I have the
P2 package and I might mess up the leveling system. Btw, those grill painted?

 

I would suggest trying to score a used head of OEM replacements off Ebay or something. This way you don't have to rush the job and you will also have a spare set in case you want to put your car back to stock.


Front Grill is painted Glossy black .

 

it's a nice look, have it on my 63

 

Imma start looking...what would be a fair price you say?

 

I would say $650 - $800 per side.

 

Looks nice and thank god dickperion agrees!!

 

Looks good, very clean. With an OEM housing that would be a great setup!

I would prefer a liiitle more contrast inside the housing, more like the E63's stock lights, and with P2 lights (which it looks like the O/P's car isn't?) you'd be able to see the LED "crystal bulb" parking lights really pop out and look cool I'd think.

 

Has anyone with a P1 package switched out the headlight assemblies for the HID's from a P2 package? Would they work?

 

That looks awesome. Sat I just turned in my leased 11 e350 with P2 and bought a 11 e350 w P1. The numbers just made sense. I actually own and run a custom auto lighting shop def planning on doing a bixenon projector swap and gloss black internals. Even more so now that I have seen it done looks good man!

 

ibedanny, I also have the 2011 w P1. As a lighting expert, I would be curious to hear if it is possible for me to retrofit p2 xenon headlights? I have never really bee able to determine if this is actually possible. I would love to hear your thoughts!

 

I know its possible very expensive there is a member who has done it. I plan on opening them, retrofitting bixenon projectors some custom led work and paint I'll be sure to post pics when done. I have a few paying jobs first but this is on the top of my list.

 

What's the difference between the stock xenons and using a hid retrofit kit? The halogens still have a projector, right?

 

I've done some retrofits before as a rank amateur, using Morimoto single projectors as well as E55 bi-xenon (shutter equipped) projectors. Both used D2S bulbs. I chose to install the Morimoto Elite 35W kit into my P1 (halogen projector) equipped E350 and was pleasantly surprised at the light quality, output, and cutoff. I would never install HID's into standard housings but the halogen projectors seem to do a decent job of it.

The main thing I found on the M and E55 projectors was that the cutoff was a bit sharper than the kit I installed but (for me) not enough to warrant a full retrofit. The P1's also retain a clear double step cutoff (driver lowest, step up to passenger, step up to right shoulder). Overall, IMO I found the install of this kit to be both cost and light effective.

I'd be interested in seeing how a bixenon retrofit project winds up - in past retrofits I installed a diode in the harness so that the low beams stay on when the hi beams are selected to activate the shutters. For those wondering what the heck shutters are, they are metal plates attached to a solenoid. The plates block off a portion of the light output for low beams, then flip up (or down) further for full lighting for high beams. In a retrofit to a single bi-xenon lamp, if the car had separate hi and lo beam lamps, you need the diode (or wiring mod) to ensure that the HID bulb will stay on when hi beams are selected and that the hi beam selector now activates the solenoid. This is because typically the lo beams turn off when the high beams are selected in most OEM applications. If you didn't modify the wiring your new lights would go off when you clicked the hi beams on.

Clear as Mud

 

What gets me about this whole discussion is that people are treating the headlamps as ornaments that can be modified by painting the insides black or installing bulbs that the projector/reflectors were never designed to use. Any modification of a headlamp assembly with a xenon bulb where a halogen was originally installed or changing the reflectors is ILLEGAL.


Headlamps are safety equipment, and unless you have a degree in engineering, work in optical design and are familiar with DOT safety regulations then leave them alone. It's not just how well you can see down the road, its what other people have to deal with when they stare down your modified lights. Police can pull you over and ticket you if they find that your lights are modified. Think about the other driver FIRST.

 

Good lecture. I'll be leaving this setup in place though, not too worried about who likes or doesn't like it without even seeing it.
What gets me is that even the OEM factory setups in vehicles seem to be getting more and more intrusive, SUV's seem to be at the forefront of this, blinding.
Wonder if they are also thinking of the other driver FIRST.
Endless topic on all lighting forums....

 

How easy was it to open the housings? Did you find a diagram anywhere? Please help.

 

I finally got around to doing mine they were NOT easy to open but retrofitted evo-x r projectors, dumy projectors in the high beam with high output leds for the P2 look, led demon eyes (colro changing) controlled by my iphone, gloss black painted internals.

 

Good work. How long did it take for the entire process and how much were the parts?

 

Parts ended up around 600. time was took about a week start to finish seeing that I worked on this on the side so kinda hard to tell. I will say this Im building a set now for a customer running around $2k. majority of this is labor

 

Yeah, most aftermarket OEM replacement parts have terrible fitment.

 

Do you have to pull the bumper cover off to remove the lights? What was the process of getting them out of the car? The "baking" of the housings, prying open, etc are pretty well covered in other threads for other makes/models.

 

Is that a black chrome grill? or is it just the lighting?

 

I need to know how you got the headlight assembly out as well. Did you have to take the bumper off? Or can you just take them out with the screws from the hood? Please let me know!! Thank you!

 

Looking good