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There are a lot of manufacturers. Here some options:
Philips RacingVision GT200 H7 Bulbs
OSRAM Night Breaker Laser +150% H7 Bulbs
Philips X-tremeUltinon gen2 LED H7 Bulbs
Philips X-tremeUltinon gen2 LED H7
There are a lot of manufacturers. Here some options:
Philips RacingVision GT200 H7 Bulbs
OSRAM Night Breaker Laser +150% H7 Bulbs
Philips X-tremeUltinon gen2 LED H7 Bulbs
Philips X-tremeUltinon gen2 LED H7
Would go with an aftermarket H7 HID retrofit. They work great in the H7 projectors - not as well as a factory HID projector but really well. Just make sure you get a metal base bulb. The ones with a plastic base are cheap and you won't be able to install them.
The best is to open the headlights up and replace the stock projectors with an aftermarket set. Very easy as retrofits go and you'll get far better results than slapping a better bulb in. . EVOX-R projectors drop in with minor trimming and you can use proper HID bulbs rather than rebased cheap ones.
Do a proper HID or LED projector retrofit. Anything else is doing a disservice to yourself and everyone else that has to see your headlights.
Please give more detail as to why you feel this way?
Originally Posted by EWT
The best is to open the headlights up and replace the stock projectors with an aftermarket set. Very easy as retrofits go and you'll get far better results than slapping a better bulb in. . EVOX-R projectors drop in with minor trimming and you can use proper HID bulbs rather than rebased cheap ones.
Guess it depends on your definition of very easy. I went through the exercise of separating the lens from the headlight and it was far from very easy.
I have/had multiple vehicles with the stock MB HID's as well as active LED's. The H7 HID's in my GL450 are very good and I currently have active curve in two other vehicles. Not saying upgraded HID projectors would not work better but most would not notice a difference.
If one searches this forum, you can see the Hella H7 projectors in the stock housings work very well with an HID or LED conversion. I've been running them on my GL for well over 200k miles. Never had anyone flash me and they are 1,000% better than the stock halogen bulbs. The stock headlights were downright unsafe. When I drove my GL home in 2007, I didn't think I would make it since I couldn't see anything with just the low beams on at hwy speeds. The vast majority of GL owners will not take the bumper off, dissect the headlights, and retrofit new HID projectors. It's like shaming the guy for getting a tune instead of a built engine with upgraded turbos. Most just don't need to be that much better than stock and prefer the best option with the highest returns for the lowest efforts.
Please give more detail as to why you feel this way?
Guess it depends on your definition of very easy. I went through the exercise of separating the lens from the headlight and it was far from very easy.
I have/had multiple vehicles with the stock MB HID's as well as active LED's. The H7 HID's in my GL450 are very good and I currently have active curve in two other vehicles. Not saying upgraded HID projectors would not work better but most would not notice a difference.
If one searches this forum, you can see the Hella H7 projectors in the stock housings work very well with an HID or LED conversion. I've been running them on my GL for well over 200k miles. Never had anyone flash me and they are 1,000% better than the stock halogen bulbs. The stock headlights were downright unsafe. When I drove my GL home in 2007, I didn't think I would make it since I couldn't see anything with just the low beams on at hwy speeds. The vast majority of GL owners will not take the bumper off, dissect the headlights, and retrofit new HID projectors. It's like shaming the guy for getting a tune instead of a built engine with upgraded turbos. Most just don't need to be that much better than stock and prefer the best option with the highest returns for the lowest efforts.
Never being flashed doesn't really mean much, especially in urban areas. I can accidentally have my high beams on due to inadvertently bumping the stalk and the only way I would realize it is when I'm wondering where my cutoff is because people just don't flash other people in urban and suburban areas.
A tune is not inherently unsafe. Improper light distribution is. Completely different stakes at play.
Most people fall into the false fallacy that more light directly in front of the car equals better lighting, which is what HID and LEDs in halogen projectors often do. It is for this reason that many people also run with the fog lights on when there is no fog. This has the effect of causing your pupils to contract to limit the light coming in. While yes, you can see things better directly in front of your car, by the time they enter the brighter range it is far too late to avoid. Good HID and LED projectors make sure to balance foreground and long distance light such that the foreground light doesn't diminish your long distance vision.
Opening the headlights up requires putting them in a 230Fish oven for 10ish minutes. They are sealed with butyl, so the cover comes off pretty easily. Start by trying to lift at a corner and once they start to separate, they come off readily. They were the first headlights I retrofitted, and the hardest part of the process was getting the bumper cover off.
The difference in light quality/quantity is significant even compared to the stock HID units, which is what they replaced in my GL. I've put HID and good (Diode Dynamics and GTR) LED bulbs in halogen projectors in multiple cars, and the quality of lighting isn't close. As Tsumi correctly points out, you often get more foreground light, which looks "brighter" but actually reduces your ability to see down the road. If people don't feel up to retrofitting, that's fine but doing so gives you a much better projector that puts light where it needs to go and gives you the ability to use a better (Philips or Osram) bulb (the rebased HID bulbs used for halogen projectors are often low quality bulbs).
Opening the headlights up requires putting them in a 230Fish oven for 10ish minutes. They are sealed with butyl, so the cover comes off pretty easily. Start by trying to lift at a corner and once they start to separate, they come off readily. They were the first headlights I retrofitted, and the hardest part of the process was getting the bumper cover off.
The difference in light quality/quantity is significant even compared to the stock HID units, which is what they replaced in my GL. I've put HID and good (Diode Dynamics and GTR) LED bulbs in halogen projectors in multiple cars, and the quality of lighting isn't close. As Tsumi correctly points out, you often get more foreground light, which looks "brighter" but actually reduces your ability to see down the road. If people don't feel up to retrofitting, that's fine but doing so gives you a much better projector that puts light where it needs to go and gives you the ability to use a better (Philips or Osram) bulb (the rebased HID bulbs used for halogen projectors are often low quality bulbs).
To add to this, there are retrofit services available, and I wouldn't mind doing retrofits as an informal side gig. This is not that much different from paying experienced people to provide a validated tune vs experimenting by trial and error for yourself what parameters to change.
The light output with the H7 HID's was soooo much better in every way over the halogen bulbs. Light was better close and down the road. Was like using a 150 watt halogen bulb. Just brighter everywhere. There is really nothing else left to say. Is it perfect, maybe not to the .0001% of the Daniel Stern's in the world but to everyone else it is. Is it as good as the stock MB HID reflectors, it's really close to the ones in my GL63 less the active curve function and they are better than the HID's in my E55. Maybe the stock MB HID projectors as noted are crap?
Something great about the Hella reflectors in the GL is they work well with the HID retrofit. It's been well documented on this and other forums the stock Hella projectors do a fine job as a retrofit. Are there some projectors that don't work great? Absolutely! Cheap projectors put out horrible light quality when you go to a retrofit bulb. With the GL projectors, the cutoff line is extremely sharp and output is consistent. Again, when I drive the GL450 and 63 back to back there is very little difference in output/lighting/visibility.
Mine were set like concrete. The oven bake method did not work and required extra heating with a heat gun and the prying distorted the plastic around the lens cover and headlight. Ended up replacing the whole units since the heat destroyed the crappy MB wiring inside the headlights. The wiring insulation was literally crumbling off. If someone were to advertise they do the retrofit, I would have gladly payed them to do it and sent them brand new headlights. Again, it was not an easy job, at least, not on my 12 year old headlights at the time.
If your headlights are more than 10 years old, you need to replace the wiring harness in the headlights or get new assemblies. MB used a type of plastic that is meant to be recycled so the wires are not at all durable. Something to think about if you are heating older MB headlights up and opening them - the wires are disintegrated or soon will become too brittle and will short once the insulation starts falling off.
The stock MB HID projectors are pretty crappy, especially if they're more than 5 years old. The reflective material Hella used could not stand up to the harshness of HIDs and would literally burn out. Replacing the OEM HID projectors on my 14 year old R500 easily tripled the light output. I had no issues with it being sealed too tight.
If you are unlucky enough to come across a headlight with permaseal instead of butyl, TRS has tools to get through those. Pricey, yes, but better than destroying a headlight.
It would not be difficult at all to rewire a halogen headlight as you have less than 10 wires to contend with. Get a bunch of solder seal wire connectors, snip near the plugs with about 3/4" of wire exposed, and use the wire connectors with a heatgun to join to new wiring. If you cut too long, just use some heatshrink to cover it up. For my active curve headlights, I used liquid electrical tape to cover up the parts that were falling apart.
I'm stumped as to why people still over-think this, or develop a religious fervor over it. Maybe it is because LED headlights have had issues with quality and design; maybe it is because people have $$ invested in HID.
I put LED bulbs in my stock h7 housings, and the results are excellent. It has been 50k miles, no regrets.
I posted pictures of the beam patterns and discussed the installation, which at the time was pretty well a pain in the rear - it may be better now. But it was doable.
About the only thing I would change: I would prefer 5000K light, not the bluish-white 6500K.
I'm stumped as to why people still over-think this, or develop a religious fervor over it. Maybe it is because LED headlights have had issues with quality and design; maybe it is because people have $$ invested in HID.
I put LED bulbs in my stock h7 housings, and the results are excellent. It has been 50k miles, no regrets.
I posted pictures of the beam patterns and discussed the installation, which at the time was pretty well a pain in the rear - it may be better now. But it was doable.
About the only thing I would change: I would prefer 5000K light, not the bluish-white 6500K.
It's simple... your LED "bulb" output is still not as good as a true retrofit.
This guy does very thorough reviews, including best and most expensive LED "bulbs" (not the cheap Amazon junk), and the objective conclusion is that the best halogen bulbs are still better. Remember, whiter is not necessarily brighter.
One primary reason: physics. While modern LED "bulbs" come close to mimicing halogen light output, it can never be 100%.
Nonsense.
Since you like scare quotes, how do refer to your household lights, assuming you have changed over to LED? Honey, could you pick up some "bulbs" at the store?
This guy does very thorough reviews, including best and most expensive LED "bulbs" (not the cheap Amazon junk), and the objective conclusion is that the best halogen bulbs are still better. Remember, whiter is not necessarily brighter.
Ridiculous. There is one LED bulb in there, and it is an older type.
Edit: For proof the guy does not know what he is talking about, here are sentences from the LED section. >It is often thought that LEDs do not get hot. While the chips don’t,
This is flat-out wrong. The LED chip itself is where all the waste heat is generated. Not counting the "ballast" which is an optional resistor to fool the CANbus.
>the drivers do and need sufficient cooling
Also wrong; LEDs can easily run straight from the vehicle 12VDC. You would be a weird designer to put a "driver" on a 12VDC supply.
>As an LED heats up, output is reduced, which is why a cool LED will often perform better than a heat soaked one.
I have never heard of this. Do your household LED bulbs dim as they warm?
Mine give a great beam pattern and are as bright as any HID I have ever seen. They are far superior to halogen.
Last edited by eric_in_sd; 11-01-2021 at 10:49 AM.
Since you like scare quotes, how do refer to your household lights, assuming you have changed over to LED? Honey, could you pick up some "bulbs" at the store?
Ridiculous. There is one LED bulb in there, and it is an older type.
Edit: For proof the guy does not know what he is talking about, here are sentences from the LED section. >It is often thought that LEDs do not get hot. While the chips don’t,
This is flat-out wrong. The LED chip itself is where all the waste heat is generated. Not counting the "ballast" which is an optional resistor to fool the CANbus.
>the drivers do and need sufficient cooling
Also wrong; LEDs can easily run straight from the vehicle 12VDC. You would be a weird designer to put a "driver" on a 12VDC supply.
>As an LED heats up, output is reduced, which is why a cool LED will often perform better than a heat soaked one.
I have never heard of this. Do your household LED bulbs dim as they warm?
Mine give a great beam pattern and are as bright as any HID I have ever seen. They are far superior to halogen.
Clearly you didn't even get past the first post based on the speed and content of your reply. You're far more concerned about defending your decision than educating yourself. This discussion is pointless unless you get over that.
Clearly you didn't even get past the first post based on the speed and content of your reply. You're far more concerned about defending your decision than educating yourself. This discussion is pointless unless you get over that.
I'm stumped as to why people still over-think this, or develop a religious fervor over it. Maybe it is because LED headlights have had issues with quality and design; maybe it is because people have $$ invested in HID.
I put LED bulbs in my stock h7 housings, and the results are excellent. It has been 50k miles, no regrets.
I posted pictures of the beam patterns and discussed the installation, which at the time was pretty well a pain in the rear - it may be better now. But it was doable.
About the only thing I would change: I would prefer 5000K light, not the bluish-white 6500K.
Did you have to Also add a special Harmess and kit,.for the LED ? kinda like the HID kit ?
Did you have to Also add a special Harmess and kit,.for the LED ? kinda like the HID kit ?
Nope, it was plug and play. You need to get the kind that has an external resistor, sometimes called a "ballast", or the CANbus will complain you have a headlight out.
The physical installation is the hard part. There is a little stamped metal ring that has to fit around the bulb to mate it to the housing. It's kind of like how the halogen bulb has a special adapter. I did a thread on how it went.
The fog lights were easy to change, except I had to open up the back of the bumper plastic to accommodate the cooling fan.
I opened up my headlights in 2019 and replaced my projectors with Evo-XR projectors along with Osram CBB bulbs. Best decision I've ever made.
I recently replaced my CBB bulbs with new ones from Lightwerkz.
To this day, I'm still unable to properly adjust the headlight beams correctly. Unable to locate a true flat level surface not to mention if your airmatic is just a tiny bit off, you'll notice it when the active cornering kicks in.
I payed $150 at my closest MB dealership to have them try and level them. It seemed they literally just lowered them straight to the ground.
I have them pretty close as of right now and it works for me.
Funny, immediately after posting about my LED headlights, I figured out that the LEDs on one side of one bulb were intermittent. This is a typical failure mode for LEDs: The tiny wire bonded to the diode loses its connection.
Note the diodes are arranged in a full circle around the center axis. While the lens on top of the LED can easily make for wide angle dispersion, it is somewhat better to do it with the diode array. Also, it is better to use more diodes than fewer, driven harder; the tradeoff is design complexity.
These are 45W bulbs; the bonus is they draw enough power that the CAN bus leaves them alone.
The headlight color temperature is an improvement over the prior. I believe the former were 6500K, which is a noticeably bluish light at night. These are 6000K, slightly closer to pure white.
The prior LED bulb lasted 34k miles. Not too shabby, except given the stated lifetime (six gorillion hours), it is early life. At an average speed of 45 mph, that is 750 hours. The low beams were on DRL mode for most of that time, so the hours estimate is reasonable. Heat is the killer for LEDs; these had heat sink compound on the back of the LED mounting board, but still the LED lens got hot enough to make rubber melt and burn when I was testing them outside the headlight assembly.
As before, the physical installation is a nightmare. Honestly it is worth the effort to take off the fender liner and pull the bumper cover forward to do the installation with the headlight assembly off the vehicle.
Last edited by eric_in_sd; 11-16-2021 at 08:30 AM.
10-28-2021 | 03:59 PM
