Upgrading led / brighter bulbs thread
MBWorld Fanatic!
Joined: Jun 2010
Posts: 2,762
Likes: 630
From: Emmett, ID, USA
2007 GL450
I'm a little late to the game, but I wanted to tack on my experience with the license plate bulbs in the interest of consolidating info. I got some LEDs for my 2010 that were the brightness and temperature I wanted, and little surprise, it threw notifications on the dash for both. I ended up soldering some resistors on the back of the unit. It's closer than I'd like to the housing since it's putting out about 4W of heat, but so far it hasn't melted the plastic or anything. I used 91 ohm 2W resistors which almost doubled the electrical load from around 2W to just under 4.
The computer tests the bulbs at non running battery voltage - when you first turn on the ignition. At least it does so with the parking lights. You might want to try 200 ohm resistors to add just 1W to the power consumption.
Super Member
Joined: May 2018
Posts: 505
Likes: 288
From: Sammamish, WA
2011 E350 Wagon, 2010 GL450
Possibly. If they burn out I'll get some new ones. I used 13V in my calculations and came out at about 1.8W. I'm not getting any "light out" notifications with the current load, so it's fine where it is in that regard. There's a good chance a 3W resistor physically wouldn't fit the way I positioned them.
