Hey all,

Newbie here on the GLE forums. My first Benz was a 2012 C300 I bought in 2012, an 07 GL450 I got in 2013, and now a 2016 GLE to the collection.

For the years I’ve been working on Benz’s, they are electronically sensitive, but mechanically the same as all cars so I had read through varying posts to get this correct, so thanks mbworld and it’s community.

I looked at the images provided by member Chao Hang Lu and when I looked into my 2016, the wire colors were different from the 2017 GLE and the 2015 ML’s.

i have the HID with auto headlight leveler so my wire colors were two brown, two yellow with black, a red, and a red with white. In the 2017, you tap into the grey wire. In the 2016, you tap into the red wire. Rather than splice thru the headlight harness, I decided to use the fuse box method to avoid errors with the electronics.

first, test the star. Open the fuse box in the engine bay by flipping the tabs and unhinging the clips. Then take the red wire of the star and touch it to the thick red wire at the top of the fuse box. Then touch the black wire to the brownish color negative terminal on the body frame to the left of the fuse box. The star should light up.

Ok so it works, let’s install. Remove your star by twisting it counterclockwise. Then pull towards you. Take your new star, put the wire inside and run it through the plastic molding. There is a small hole to the left of the radiator. If you shine a flashlight through the hole of your removed star, you will see the only hole with light coming out of it. After running the wire through, use the screw that’s holding the plastic down as your ground point. Instead of unscrewing it, put the negative wire on an O-ring crimp. Place it thru the post, and use a 10mm but to screw it down. (I tried to unscrew the nut already there and wire the negative underneath but the plastic didn’t ground it correctly. So the screw post should be original nut, o ring crimped negative wire, and another nut.

I took the positive wire and used a wire splice to join it to a small 5 inch copper wire. That new wire was the one that connected to fuse 231. I placed the wire in the left hole of 231, and inserted a 7.5a blade. My fuse box didn’t have anything in 231, but the fuse layout stated that it’s suppose to have a 7.5a for the headlights.

Turned on the car and it works when the headlights are on. I routed the thin single wire along the box, and had it come out of the fuse box between the clips. I tucked away the rest of the wiring and it’s done.

you can skip the extra wire step by splitting the red and black wires and have the red wire go directly into the fuse box. I just wanted to keep everything looking clean and wrapped.

 

Looks nice! clean and neat!

 

I have a 2018 GLE 350 and the wiring is different but I found that in the fuse box (see your pic) on the bottom right there is a few slots that are live when the ignition is on and not fused! I used a spade connector on the end of an in line fuse (4amp) and connected to the positive wire of the star! Ground is the same as yours! The Star is lit when the ignition is on and off when the ignition is off! Works great and doesn't interfere with any of the sensitive lighting circuits!